[en] The manufacturing industry has entered a new era of highly changeable customer requirements and tailor-made products. To meet market demands, manufacturing systems need to be redefined to be able to cost-effectively produce a wide variety of products. Sustainability is key in this endeavour, maximising the utilisation of all available resources to address new bills of processes. To achieve this, however, the development of new capabilities are imperative to seamlessly adapt the manufacturing sector to the new paradigm. At the core of the production system, the Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) orchestrates all necessary resources to initiate new processes, including modifications to the PLC program. For this reason, PLC software must be thoroughly tested after each adaptation, to ensure operational safety. At present, testing is conducted during commissioning, which typically takes place at the end of the development process, resulting in a significant impact in time and cost. In addition, the manual nature of testing practices requires considerable effort, and leaves the PLC open to errors. All these issues are further compounded in frequently changing and adaptive environments, hence the need to adopt new practices. In this research project, therefore, we present an automated and cost-effective methodology to test highly reconfigurable PLC programs in industry. The presented approach is industry oriented, and thus we focus on the transfer of best-practices in software engineering, to the manufacturing environment. To this end, we introduce a theoretical virtual commissioning framework to enhance commissioning practices. Moreover, our approach is based on testing the logic of Functional Block Diagram (FBD) programs, one of the most widely employed PLC programming languages in Europe. Our methodology comprises the generation of the test cases based on the IEC 61131-3 standard, cost-effective test selection of the test cases, and simulation-based testing in commercially used automation solutions (the Siemens TIA portal) with the use of test oracles. The proposal is validated with two real industrial case studies: 1) Omnifactory, which is the future automated aerospace assembly demonstrator, recently launched at the University of Nottingham, and 2) the machine tool manufacturing industry at Danobatgroup. The results demonstrate that by automating conventional practices our methodology can effectively test real industrial PLC programs, which ultimately reduces costs and time, and ensures the reuse of available resources.

[eu] Manufaktura-industria aro berri batean murgiltzen ari da, bezeroen eskari neurrigabeak eta neurrira egindako produktuen beharrak bultzatuta. Merkatuaren beharrak asetzeko asmotan, errentagarriak diren fabrikazio-sistemak berriro definitu beharrean aurkitzen gara. Jasangarritasuna kontutan hartzea funtsezkoa da prozesu honetan, eskura dauden baliabideak berrerabiliz prozesu berriak burutu ahal izateko. Halaber, era berri honi aurre egiteko digitalizazioak bultzatutako teknologia eta ezagutza berriak baliatu behar ditugu. Kontrolatzaile logiko programagarriak (PLC-ak) industria automatizazioan erabiltzen diren gailu elektronikoak izanik, egoera berriei erantzuteko bere baitan dauden baliabide guztiak uneoro kudeatu behar dituzte. Prozesu honek aldiz, PLC-aren softwarea aldatzea dakar. Hori dela eta, sistemak behar bezala funtzionatzen duela bermatzea ezinbestekoa da, hots, aldaketen ostean akatsik egon ez dela egiaztatzea. Tradizionalki hau eskuz egin ohi den jarduera da, ahalegin haundiak eskatzen dituelarik. Honetaz gain, sistemaren funtzionamendu egokia ez da azken momentura arte begiratzen, eta ondorioz, ezusteko akatsak aurkitu izan ohi dira. Uneoroko aldaketak eskatzen dituen era berri honek, arazo guzti hauek are gehiago larrituko lituzke. Tesi honek PLC-en software-ari zuzendutako test jarduera automatizatu eta eraginkor bat aurkeztea du helburu. Gauzak honela, Europa mailan gehien erabiltzen den PLC lengoaietako batetan oinarritzen gara, zehazki FBD lengoaian. Lehenik eta behin, biki digitaletan oinarritutako esparru teoriko bat proposatzen da, jarduera hauek modu eraginkor batetan aplikatu daitezen. Garatutako metodologiak hiru urrats nagusi ditu: 1) IEC 61131-3 estandarrean oinarritutako test instantziak sortzea, 2) test hauen optimizazioa, eraginkorrenak soilik aukeratze aldera, eta 3) test jarduerak merkatuan aurkitzen diren simulazio testuinguruetan exekutatzea, horretarako orakulu testak erabiliz. Industriara bideratuko tesia izanik, industrian gehien erabiltzen den automatizazio soluzioetako batetan inplementatu da, hain zuzen Siemens-eko TIA Portal produktuan. Honekin batera, software ingeniaritzako jarduerak eta jakintza industriara eramatea lortu da. Metodologia balioztatzeko, industriako bi kasu erreal erabili dira: 1) Omnifactory, Nottinghameko Unibertsitatean garatutako etorkizuneko aeroespazioko muntaketara bideratutako automatizazio plataforma, eta 2) makina-erreminten fabrikazio-industrian Danobatgroup-eko makinak kudeatzen dituen PLC-a. Emaitzen arabera, aurkeztutako metodologia test jarduerak modu eraginkorrean automatizatzeko gai da, azken finean, kostuak eta denbora murriztuz, eta baliabideen berrerabiltasuna uztartuz.