Improving Quality Assurance in Automation Systems Development Projects

Development processes of large-scale automation systems, e.g., power plants and manufacturing systems involve engineers from various disciplines, e.g., mechanical, electrical, and software engineers, who have to collaborate to enable the construction of high-quality systems (Biffl et al., 2009a). Engineers in individual disciplines apply domainspecific tools, methods, and data models, which are typically not seamlessly linked to each other. For instance, electrical engineers use circuit diagrams and technical data sheets to model the electrical behaviour of the systems, process engineers focus on process workflows for the instrumentation of the system, and software engineers use software models to develop and test control applications of the system (Hametner et al., 2011).