An adaptive, context-sensitive, workflow support system for process and automation engineering of production plants
Creators: name: Ghobadi-Bigvand, Pouria
Publisher: name: Universitätsbibliothek der HSU / UniBwH
Year: 2018
Subjects: subject: Anlagenplanung
subject: Workflow-Unterstützungssystem
subject: Plant Engineering Workflow
subject: 670 Industrielle Fertigung

description: This research is aimed to introduce a novel concept and a methodology for an adaptive and context-sensitive engineering workflow support system in an object-oriented, domain-independent, and model-driven virtual environment for process and automation engineering of plants. To understand the expectations from such a system, first an extensive empirical study of engineering workflows in more than 15 plant engineering companies in the USA, Europe, and Asia was undertaken and more than 180 interviews with engineers of diverse engineering disciplines were performed. Throughout this empirical study, various industrial engineering methods of process and automation engineering and utilized software tools were characterized and documented. An analysis of typical engineering workflows and tools was performed and cultural or technical parameters that have a significant impact on the execution of a project were identified. This study provided a solid fundament for comparison of industrial and scientific efforts in the domain of engineering workflow support systems. In addition to the empirical study, a review of various state-of-the-art technologies for engineering software tools which are widely utilized in industry, as well as latest technological trends in this field are discussed and capabilities of these software technologies for execution of engineering projects and support of engineers are analysed and presented. Based on these studies, a novel concept for an engineering execution support system in the field of process and automation engineering of production plants is introduced which covers the main expectations from such a system i.e. adaptability, context-sensitivity, and flexibility. This concept is based on the technology of object-oriented, model-driven engineering and the methodology which was developed and utilized based on this concept, is to use individual object’s life-paths (lifeflows) as a new aspect of objects within the project data model. Additionally, reference data models are used to analyse the project context and offer the next optimal engineering step for every user in every phase of a project depending on the context and state. Object’s lifeflow is a sequence of events and actions that should happen for an object instance in the plant data model depending on its class to reach its maturity i.e. fully engineered state. Such methodology can be deployed within any tool that is mounted above the new generation of engineering software platforms to enhance engineering support or creating new possibilities for optimized engineering methods such as learning and communication between mature and young objects with same lifeflows in the plant data model. For validation of the introduced concept, a prototype is developed based on a commercial process and automaton design engineering software, “Engineering Base” a product of AUCOTEC AG Above explained steps resulted in an adaptive, context-sensitive workflow support system in which its feasibility and benefits are verified and validated in a sample plant engineering project.