Metric-based Identification of Target Conflicts in the Development of Industrial Automation Software Libraries

Automated Production Systems are highly complex, mechatronic systems whose functionality is implemented increasingly via automation software. Achieving and maintaining high software quality for system lifetimes of several decades is thus crucial for machine and plant manufacturing companies to stay globally competitive. However, the multitude of stakeholders involved in the software development workflow ranging from library module standardization up to commissioning at the customer’s site, leads to different perspectives on code quality and target conflicts in the software optimization. This paper introduces a metric-based approach substantiated by structural analysis of dependency graphs to systematically identify target conflicts between library developers interested in high maintainability to keep the software evolvable for years, and application engineers interested in intuitive ease of use to integrate the library’s functionality into machine-specific projects. The approach is evaluated with an industrial automation software library.