Initial situation

Automated material flow systems are highly complex and are often built precisely to a customer's specifications. Errors can have massive consequences: if they remain undetected until commissioning, unforeseeable additional costs are incurred. Specialists from various technical disciplines are involved in the development process. They each view the system from the perspective required for their specific work. As a result, details are often overlooked. The different perspectives are also only compatible with each other to a limited extent and changes are not always communicated consistently - in science this is referred to as inconsistency.

The KonMaFS project aims to make project work faster and more efficient. To achieve this, it uses a method from computer science. The Virtual Single Underlying Meta Model (V-SUMM) approach establishes relationships between the models of the individual planning specialists. The modeling saves all aspects of the material flow system, but only provides the individual users with the information that is relevant to them.

Objective

KonMaFS pursues three overarching goals:

• The new procedure should help to reduce the number of steps involved in system development in practice.
• The number of errors caused by system breaks should be reduced.
• The aim is to investigate the effects of changes in the overall system (inconsistencies when modifying individual system modules).

Procedure

KonMaFS consists of five project phases:

• A detailed study in cooperation with partner companies from the industry to determine the most important work steps in the development of material flow systems
• Linking the different views of the overall system and defining a V-SUMM modeling approach for automated material flow systems
• Application of the approach to a practical demonstrator
• Expansion of the knowledge gained by adding further properties for the V-SUMM
• Evaluation of the project in cooperation with industrial partners

The project is a cooperation between the Technical University of Munich (Chair of Materials Handling Material Flow Logistics of Prof. Fottner and Chair of Automation and Information Systems of Prof. Vogel-Heuser) and the University of Duisburg-Essen (paluno, specification of software systems of Prof. Goedicke).

(DFG project number 451550676)