KR20110074156A - Method for software equity building and storage device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A software asset driving method and recording medium are provided to reduce existing wasteful factors which repetitively redesigns by designing software using set asset DB when constructing a new process control application. CONSTITUTION: Feature points of process control application is received and a feature model is generated(S302). event DB showing data construct of each event is generated(S304). Workflow items related to each feature of the feature model is written. A workflow DB construct describing generated events according to each work flow is generated(S306).

Description

Method for software equity building and storage device

The present invention relates to a method for building a software development environment and a recording medium, and to a method for constructing a reusable asset DB by analyzing an existing software application.

In general, a process computer (P / C) among the systems for steel processing in steel mills is a system located in the middle tier among steel processing systems.

The process control operation unit (P / C) drives an actuator through a PLC (Rrogrammable Logic Controller) to precisely control a specific steel process facility, and also collects sensor information and PLC data measured by the steel process facility. Transfer it to the upper processing unit.

The process control operation unit (P / C) is operated by application of the software that performs the above tasks, although the process is similar due to the change of facilities of each plant and the difference of software developer's capability, operating environment and external conditions. Nevertheless, various types of application software applications have been developed and used.

However, because of this, each time a new facility is introduced, it takes time and money to develop the software, and the quality of the developed software is also different. In addition, even if the operator with a certain understanding of the process has a limitation in understanding the software designed for the application of various factories, it is difficult to modify or supplement the software applied to the application except the developer.

In order to compensate for this, in the past, an attempt was made to develop software based on a methodology provided by a reuse tool such as Ration ROSE or Together, but the development methodology itself is very difficult, and there are so many steps that it takes considerable time and effort. There is a problem.

Therefore, each tool developer sent a consultant to educate the methodology to educate the developers for a long time and to see the effect of reuse, but there was a problem that it took too much time to produce the output. In addition, although the source code was generated based on the initial design, there was a problem that the initial design could not be updated for the source code change due to the change of requirements in the second half of the development.

The biggest problem with these existing methods is that they analyze only one piece of software that was built in a single factory that was made just before, and reuse it at the level of making some changes. There was a waste of having to repeat the design and detailed design work.

The technical problem of the present invention is to analyze the software applied to the existing process control application to build an asset DB for designing a new process control application. In addition, the technical problem of the present invention is to provide an efficient software development environment using the built asset DB. In addition, the technical problem of the present invention is to build a variety of asset DB based on the feature that describes the feature points of the process equipment to be controlled.

In the embodiment of the present invention, a feature model generation process of receiving feature points of a process control application to generate a feature model, and an event performed in an existing process control application, an event DB showing a data structure of each event An event DB generation process for generating an event, a workflow item related to each feature point of the feature model, a workflow DB generation process for generating a workflow DB describing events generated for each workflow, and the work Workflow diagram creation process that creates a workflow diagram in the form of a diagram showing the flow of events occurring between workflows in the flow DB, and a work that sequentially describes the components that each workflow in the workflow diagram should perform. Flow task list Including gender workflow task list generation process.

Another embodiment of the present invention receives an event performed in an existing process control application, describes an event DB representing a data structure of each event, and a workflow item associated with each feature point of the process control application, Workflow DB describing the events that occur in each workflow, a workflow diagram in the form of a diagram illustrating the event flow occurring between the workflows in the workflow DB, and each workflow in the workflow diagram performs a task. It is a recording medium that records a workflow task list describing the components that should be in order.

Embodiments of the present invention can effectively build an asset DB by analyzing software applied to existing process control applications. When designing a new process control application, the software can be designed using the built-in asset DB to eliminate existing wasteful redesign. In addition, it extracts commonalities and differences from software of existing process control application developed differently according to software developer's ability, understanding, development environment, reuse methodology, facility, etc. Can be generated. In addition, by providing a workflow diagram, software readability and reusability are improved. In addition, the conventional software has a problem that it is difficult to modify / supplement by other people because only the developer can understand, but the readability is improved through the asset DB built by the embodiment of the present invention can be quickly maintained by others It works.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Hereinafter, detailed descriptions of embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description of the reference numerals to the components of the drawings it should be noted that the same reference numerals as possible even if displayed on different drawings.

Hereinafter, the drawings and the detailed description will be described by taking an example of a process control operation apparatus operating on a steel processing equipment, but the present invention can be applied to a facility having a control process such as a semiconductor processing equipment, an automotive processing equipment, as well as a steel processing equipment. Will be self explanatory.

In order to facilitate the understanding of the present invention, the operation of the process control application for process control of the steel process equipment will be briefly described with reference to FIG. 1.

1 is a diagram illustrating an operation example of a process control computing device in a steel processing facility.

The process computer 110 (P / C) is a processor located in a middle layer of a system for steel processing in an ironworks, and performs a process control operation through the process control application 112.

The process control application 112 receives detailed information on the work plan from the B / C (Bussiness Computer) at the top, schedules detailed work, and applies the desired control logic to control the PLC 120 (Programmable Logic Controller) at the bottom. The actuator is driven to precisely control the actual steel processing equipment 130.

In addition, the process control application 112 collects the sensor information of the actual steel process equipment 130 and the input / output (I / O) data of the PLC 120 and communicates some of the results to the top B / C through communication. Will be sent to (100).

In addition, the process control application 112 performs a real-time history management of the information flowing through the steel material in the steel processing equipment 130 to determine the tracking status by transmitting to the PLC 120 and the B / C (100) real-time control and Help with planning At this time, the collected and controlled data is displayed to the operator in real time through the HMI (Human Machine Interface).

In addition, the process control application 112 also tracks the steel quality to be manufactured in real time to perform some control and data collection according to the quality, and in some cases, the collected data in conjunction with the material information and facility information Predict the control state of the.

To this end, the process control application 112 controls the steel processing equipment 130 based on the environmental conditions of the steel processing equipment 130 to be controlled. That is, the process control application 112 is software designed according to the environmental conditions such as the device environment, operating environment, external environment, etc., suitable for the steel process equipment 130 to be controlled to perform the control.

For example, the A process control application, which controls A steel process facility, performs software design and control according to the environmental conditions for A steel process facility. Similarly, the B process control application, which controls B steel process equipment, performs software design and control according to environmental conditions for B steel process equipment.

Thus, if a new steel process facility is to be replaced, the process control application within the process control computing unit must be software designed to meet the environmental conditions of the newly replaced new steel machine.

However, when designing a new process control application software, we tried to reuse it at the level of changing and analyzing only one piece of software that was built in just one factory immediately, so every time we build a new plant and build a process control application There is a waste of having to repeat similar analysis and design tasks.

Therefore, an embodiment of the present invention is to analyze the existing process control applications that are already used and have reliability to grasp the differences or commonalities between them and build an asset DB. Therefore, when designing a new process control application, it is possible to eliminate wasteful elements such as iterative redesign by designing using the constructed asset DB.

2 is a diagram illustrating the operation of a software asset building application according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2, the software asset building application 200 of the present invention generates an asset DB as a program implemented in software mounted on a processor such as a computer that can operate.

To this end, the software asset building application 200 analyzes characteristics of software applied to existing process control applications in each process control operation unit (P / C) and applies them to a new steel process facility. Generated as an asset DB.

This is to allow the developer to use the constructed asset DB in software design of a new joint control application. When designing a process control application to be applied to a new steel process facility, it is possible to easily develop using an asset DB built by the software asset building application 200.

The asset DB generated by the software asset building application 200 includes an event DB, a workflow DB, a workflow diagram, and a workflow task list. The process of generating the asset DBs by the software asset building application 200 will be described in detail with the flowchart of FIG. 3.

3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation process of a software asset building application according to an embodiment of the present invention.

The software asset building application includes a feature model generation process (S302), an event DB generation process (S304), a workflow DB generation process (S306), a workflow diagram generation process (S308), and a workflow task list generation process (S310). do.

The feature model generation process (S302) receives the name of the steel processing equipment and the feature points of the steel processing equipment, and performs a function of generating a feature model, which is a feature model of the steel processing system.

In order to receive input of the name and feature point of the steel processing equipment, an input editor tool having a separate user input interface in the form of a graphical user interface (GUI) is provided. The input editor tool receives a name and a feature point of an object to be designed from a process control application designer. In this case, an input editor tool may receive an input from a builder who builds a software asset.

A feature is an attribute or feature point in a region of interest in a development environment of a particular region. For example, in the case of software that controls steel processing equipment, this is the characteristic of the particular processing equipment of interest in the steel processing equipment.

Therefore, the steel processing equipment may have a variety of processing equipment, such as a reproducing process equipment, steel making process equipment, etc., after receiving the name of a specific process equipment is received corresponding feature points (features).

The name of the process equipment to be input is entered as a standard term, terminology used in the process equipment through the design used in the development of the existing process control application, or through interviews with the developers and operators of the process control application. )

For example, if the steel processing equipment is equipment related to the playing process, the terms received are as shown in the following table.

Terminology (Korean) Terminology (English) Explanation Yu Sa Oh Playing process Continuos Casting System Continuous casting process Casting, CC -

In the above table, the term (Korean / English) field is a Korean and English name determined for use in event standardization, the description field is a description of the term, and the synonym field is not a standard term but similarly used term, etymology field. Indicates the source of a term when the term being defined is used only in a particular system.

After receiving the name of the process equipment to be controlled, the feature model is configured by receiving the features that are the feature points.

At this time, the input feature points are received based on the terms received above. For example, if the input process term is 'playing process', the feature points to be input display the input fields of the feature points related to the 'playing process' so that the feature points related to the playing process from the builder (e.g., process control service, product Etc.). Each process has a list of feature points as a separate DB, which can be input through the feature point input field associated with the term being entered.

The feature points input from the builders who build the software asset building application are, for example, features related to the 'playing process', as shown in FIG. 4, a process control service, a product, and a system service. (System Service), External System Network Link, Equipment, Language, Platform, Platform, Some Process Method, Communication Method, etc. feature).

 Description of each feature is as follows.

Process Control Service; The new process control application, which represents the service to be provided in relation to process control, may be related to tracking, performance collection, and product planning. Can be added as a child feature.

Product; These are related to the products produced by steel processing facilities by process control in process control applications.

System service; The process control application is a service that provides the information necessary for the operation of the steel process facility, and is related to maintenance functions or human machine interface (HMI).

External System Network Link; An external system that is connected to the Process Control Process Computer, which can be divided into layers according to the architecture.

-Equipments; Equipment under process control in process control applications, which is a major factor that actually affects steel processing equipment

Language; Programming language used to implement process control applications within process control computing units.

Platform; An infrastructure used by a process control application in a process control computing device, for example, middleware or a DBMS (Database Management System).

Some Process Method; A technique (algorithm) specifically used in the process control application may be used. For example, names of various operation tasks may be described, and workflow IDs may be described in the task.

A communication method; Communication technology used by process control applications

Each feature shown in FIG. 4 is a tree structure and is divided into CA, OE, DT, and IT levels. CA (Capability) level is a level that indicates the system capability, OE (Operating Environment) is the level of operating environment such as OS, development language, etc., DT (Domain Technology) is the algorithm level to perform the process, Information Technology (IT) is External communication level. The list of features in the group by level is predefined.

The event DB generation process S304 analyzes an event performed by software of a plurality of process control applications currently being used to perform an event standardization operation of generating an event DB.

The event standardization is to identify and classify events generated in the soap of each process control application. In other words, each existing process control application grasps the events performed at the process control and classifies them into a common event set and a dependent event set to form a DB.

For reference, event identification of each process control application may be performed in various ways. For example, each process control application may be read by inputting source code of each process control application and reading an event comment portion or event ID in the corresponding source code. You can find the contents of the event performed in. Alternatively, by reading event comment files that are separately created and stored in each process control application, the contents of events performed in each process control application can be grasped.

Events are divided into two types as shown in FIG. Common events are events that perform the same in each process control application, and subordinate events are events that are performed only in a specific common control application depending on the facility of the factory. Therefore, the event DB consists of two types: common event DB and dependent event DB.

Common Event DB (Common Event DB) is a database by giving a common event ID (ID) to the common events. The events generated by each process control application have different unique IDs in the system, but the common IDs are included in the common event DB for events having the same meaning.

Subordinate Event DB (Subordinate Event DB) is classified into a database for each of the events that are mutually replaceable and unique events that cannot be replaced. In case of the mutually replaceable events among the dependent events, it is set to the same ID as the unique event ID used in the corresponding process control application, and it is separately indicated that it can be replaced with each other and included in the dependent event set.

Among the dependent events, non-interchangeable unique events that are performed only in a specific process control application are set to the same ID as the unique event ID used in the corresponding process control application, and are included in the dependent event set by separately indicating that they cannot be replaced. .

6 is a diagram illustrating an example of a common event DB, and description of each field is as follows. For reference, the dependent event DB also has the same list.

Event ID; Standard ID of the event to be used in the process control application

-Event description; Description of the event

- occurrence condition; Describe the conditions under which an event occurs

Source level; Level of source that fires the event

Data structure type; Structure type of the data carried by the event

- division; External / internal event, if the source of event is data from external system, specify as external event

-Change factors; Indicates whether it is a common event used by all process control applications or a sub event used only by a specific process control application.

In the example shown in FIG. 6, it can be seen that the E_TEST event has a data structure having a type of 'BASIC'. Therefore, when the E_TEST event occurs, it can be known through the event DB that a data structure of type 'BASIC' should be called.

Depending on the type of event, it can be defined as various data structure types. Each data structure type is usually defined as a data structure in C Language.

Structures are defined for each data structure type. An example of a data structure of type 'BASIC' is illustrated in FIG. 7. Event DB defines what type of data structure each type of data structure has and holds it together as DB.

Each field of the data structure is described as follows.

Data Name; Name of the data that is passed with the event

Type; Type of data

Data Comment; A description of the data, usually the event ID, which is the unique ID of the event to be used in the process control application.

After generating the event DB described above, a workflow DB generation process (S306) and a workflow diagram (S308) to be operated in a new process control application are generated based on the event DB. A workflow is a set of procedures or units of work required to accomplish a task.

The workflow DB is generated with a list of workflow items related to each feature in the feature model generated in the feature model generation process (S302).

For example, in the feature model of the 'playing process' in FIG. 4, the feature 'some process method' may have various workflow items including 'Message_Receive' and 'Message_Send'. To create items as a list.

These workflow items can be identified by analyzing the workflow performed by the software of each existing process control application. For example, the source code of each process control application may be input, and the contents of the workflow performed in each process control application may be grasped by reading a workflow comment portion of the corresponding source code. Alternatively, you can read the workflow comment file that is created and saved separately in each process control application to understand the contents of events performed in each process control application.

8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a workflow DB of the feature 'some process method', and description of each field is as follows.

Workflow ID; Unique English name to use

- name; Hangul names to help users understand

-Role; Role to play in the workflow

Association with external systems; As a type of workflow, for example, a workflow that communicates with an external system is referred to as a link.

An associated event; A list of events that need to be processed in the workflow, which must be included in the event set created during the event DB process, and can also include events that occur periodically.

-Change factors; A factor that causes a workflow change, indicating whether the workflow is used in all process control applications or in a specific process control application.

Therefore, related events that occur in the workflow are described for each workflow item in the workflow DB. This enables the developer to know the list of events that occur in each workflow. The description of such an event and the data structure of the event can be obtained through the event DB of FIGS. 6 and 7.

The workflow diagram generation process (S308) displays and outputs the event flow generated between the workflows shown in the workflow list in diagram form.

An example of a workflow interaction diagram is shown in FIG. 9. Referring to FIG. 9, a workflow having an ID of MessageRessive generates an event called E_DCstSCh and E_DCStOrd to a schedule manager workflow, and an E_TEST and E_SMlm to a workflow having an ID of Analysis Manager. It can be seen that it generates an event.

The flow of events generated in the workflows performed in the existing process control applications may extract the workflow items described in the workflow DB and associate and analyze their mutual events to display the flow between diagrams. . Therefore, the developer can know the flow of events occurring between workflows through the workflow diagram of FIG. 9.

On the other hand, the workflow diagram of FIG. 9 shows only the flow of event operations between the workflows, and a job performed in each workflow is not described. Therefore, a process of generating a list of jobs performed in each workflow as a workflow task list (S310).

The workflow task list generation process (S310) is a process of generating a list describing components in order for each workflow in the workflow diagram to perform work. The component is data necessary for programming a job to be performed in detail within each workflow.

FIG. 10 is a diagram illustrating a workflow task list, and illustrates a workflow task list for a workflow called MessageReceive as an example. Description of each field is as follows.

- order; Order of running components

- component; Name of component to run

Interface name; The user interface name of the component

Accordingly, the developer may know that the components of FIG. 10 are executed in order when the workflow 'MessageReceive' is activated in the workflow diagram of FIG. 9.

The generated workflow task list is provided in a DB form, and when the developer builds a process control application to be applied to a new steel processing facility, the workflow task list can identify a list of components to be performed in a specific workflow. .

In the above, each component is assigned an interface name, so that the developer can obtain the data property of the component by calling a function when designing an application.

To do this, create a component library. The component library is compiled by assigning components to each interface. When a specific interface call is made, the component library is provided as a function called by a data property of a component corresponding to the interface.

The component library compiles and generates a component list.

An example of the component list is illustrated in FIG. 11.

Interface name; The name of the component interface in the component library that will be provided to process control application developers.

Component ID; ID representing the work to be done in the process control application

Data processing unit; Record the data to be processed when the component ID (ID) call is made and the processing unit of the data, and the data can be represented by symbols

-Job description; Description of the job that component data is used for

-Change factors; Indicates whether the component is used in all process control applications or only in a specific process control application

Therefore, when a process control application developer calls a specific interface name in a component library when coding a program, the component library provides domain component IDs, data processing units, and change factors assigned to the called interface.

On the other hand, the feature model generation process (S302), the event DB generation process (S304), the workflow DB generation process (S306), the workflow diagram generation process (S308) and the workflow work list generation process (S310) The asset DBs are recorded on a recording medium such as a server or a removable memory, so that a developer designing a new process control application can perform an efficient software design using the asset DB recorded on the recording medium.

Meanwhile, symbols may be allocated to each data in the component list. This is to define specific data as a common symbol in order to share and use the data in the component list with each other in multiple software.

In other words, when constructing a component list, data to be processed in a 'data processing unit' is represented by a symbol, so that all the process control applications using the component library can share the corresponding data.

The shared symbol table for storing such symbols will be briefly described.

The shared symbol table is a database in which symbols are allocated to each data to improve maintainability while data used in the process control application is stored in the memory.

The shared symbol table configures the table as a standard structure for data that is primarily redundant with respect to the data structure constituting the shared memory used in the existing process control application.

12 is a diagram illustrating an example of a shared symbol table. In the data portion, actual data to be actually returned when a symbol ID is called is recorded.

On the other hand, it is inefficient to map all the shared memories to symbols in one dimension, so that a basic n-dimensional array structure can be allocated to one symbol. There is a key for the index of the array. Referring to FIG. 11, the number of the array may be actually recorded in the 'name' of the 'key' field. If the shared memory to be mapped is a one-dimensional primitive, the 'key' field is not recorded. Details of this are described in the 'interface system and method for accessing data of the performance system (application number: 2009-0026473) filed by the inventor.

In the above description of the present invention, specific embodiments have been described, but various modifications may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the scope of the present invention is not to be determined by the embodiments described above, but will be apparent in the claims as well as equivalent scope.

1 is a view showing an operation example of a process control computing device in a steel processing system.

2 is a diagram illustrating the operation of a software asset building application according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a flowchart illustrating an operation process of a software asset building application according to an embodiment of the present invention.

4 is a view showing a feature model of the 'playing process' according to an embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a diagram illustrating a common event set and a dependent event set according to an embodiment of the present invention.

6 is a diagram illustrating an example of an event DB according to an embodiment of the present invention.

7 is a diagram illustrating an example data structure of an event according to an embodiment of the present invention.

8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a workflow DB according to an embodiment of the present invention.

9 is a diagram illustrating an example of a workflow interaction diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention.

10 is a diagram illustrating an example of a workflow task list according to an embodiment of the present invention.

11 is a diagram illustrating an example of a component list according to an embodiment of the present invention.

12 is a diagram illustrating an example of a shared symbol table according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Claims (15)

A feature model generation process of receiving feature points of the process control application and generating a feature model; An event DB generation process of receiving an event performed by an existing process control application and generating an event DB indicating a data structure of each event; A workflow DB generation process of describing a workflow item related to each feature point of the feature model and generating a workflow DB describing events generated by each workflow; A workflow diagram generation process of generating a workflow diagram in diagram form illustrating an event flow generated between workflows in the workflow DB; And Process for creating a workflow task list that generates a workflow task list that sequentially describes the components that each workflow in the workflow diagram should perform Software asset construction method comprising a. The method of claim 1, wherein the feature model generation process receives a feature of a process facility to be controlled by a newly designed process control application and feature points associated with an input process facility term. The method of claim 1, wherein the feature model generation process comprises generating a feature model by receiving at least one of feature points including a product, a system service, an external system network link, equipment, a development language, a platform, a process method, and a communication method. How to build software assets. The method of claim 1, wherein the event DB is classified into a common event DB applied to all process control applications and a dependent event DB applied to a specific process control application to generate a DB. The method of claim 4, wherein the dependent event DB classifies and databases each of the interchangeable events and the unique events that are not interchangeable. The method according to claim 1, wherein the event DB, the ID of the event, the description of the event, the condition of generating the event, the source level for generating the event, the data structure type of the event, whether the internal / external event, the change factor (common event or dependent event A software asset building method comprising one or more of the items in the (a). The method of claim 1, wherein the event DB defines data structures for each data structure type. 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the data structure includes a data name, a type of data, and a description of the data. The method of claim 1, wherein the workflow DB, the workflow ID, name, the role played in the workflow, the relationship with the external system, events generated in the workflow, change factors (workflow used in all process control applications whether Or whether the workflow is used by a specific process control application). The method according to claim 1, wherein the workflow task list includes a list of components, which is a list of unit of work to be executed for each workflow, together with an interface name. The method according to claim 10, further comprising generating a component library in which data characteristics of each component are described. The method according to claim 11, wherein the component library, component ID, the interface name of the component, data processing unit, job description, change factors (components used in all process control applications or only used in a specific process control application Method of building a software asset. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating a shared symbol table in which a symbol is allocated to each data so that data corresponding to the symbol call is returned. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 13, wherein the process control application is an application for controlling steel processing equipment. An event DB that receives an event performed by an existing process control application and shows a data structure of each event; A workflow DB describing a workflow item related to each feature of the process control application and describing events generated by each workflow; A workflow diagram in diagram form illustrating an event flow generated between workflows in the workflow DB; And Workflow task list describing in order the components that each workflow in the workflow diagram should perform Recording medium having recorded thereon.

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