More with less — how do we master the increasing complexity of production systems?
Industry faces major challenges as product lifecycles shorten, product variability increases, and global markets become more volatile. To remain competitive, production facilities and equipment must be adaptable to respond quickly and efficiently to these changes.
A key success factor in achieving these goals is the control and automation infrastructure. New distributed architectures are a possible approach to address these requirements. New interaction and communication patterns as well as new ways of programming automation systems consisting of networked control units are required.
Mastering variability and complexity in cyber-physical production systems also requires new software engineering methods and tools, particularly for variability modeling and product configuration as well as to support maintenance and evolution.
LIT | CPS Lab
Address
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Altenberger Straße 69
4040 Linz
Location
LIT Open Innovation Center Ground Floor
Phone
+43 732 2468 9494
At the end of February, the Software Engineering Conference 2024 (SE24) took place at the JKU campus - the annual symposium of the Software Engineering area of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI). The LIT Cyber-Physical Systems Lab and the Institute for Business Informatics - Software Engineering organized the event (General Chairs: Prof. Rick Rabiser und Prof. Manuel Wimmer).
A total of 50 talks were accepted and held for the main program. In addition to the exciting tracks such as the Student Research Competition, the Industry Program, and the Ernst Denert Software Engineering Prize, five workshops and one meetup on various topics were held as well as a panel of Research Software Engineering. Please find details about the program here: https://se2024.se.jku.at/detailprogramm/.
Also, three interesting keynotes were given:
Janet Siegmund is Professor of Software Engineering at Chemnitz University of Technology. On Wednesday, she presented her keynote titled "New Perspectives on the Human Factor in Software Engineering", in which she emphasized the importance of the human factor and the insights gained from research in this area.
Bernd Greifeneder is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Dynatrace. He presented the keynote "How Dynatrace innovates at scale" on Thursday. Dynatrace has established itself as a pioneer in the application of AI for observability and security. Greifeneder shared insights on how the company has scaled and innovated and how collaboration with research talent from the university has opened up new opportunities.
Hermann Sikora is Chairman of the Management Board of Raiffeisen Software GmbH and Spokesman of the Management Board of RAITEC GmbH. He presented the keynote "Are we ready for the Software Factory?" on Friday. He discussed the evolution of software development, the importance of programming-in-the-large and the potential impact of generative AI on software engineering on an industrial scale.
You can find more details about the keynotes on the SE24 website: https://se2024.se.jku.at/keynotes/
You did not attend the conference and want more information? No problem, we have compiled a review from four perspectives for you:
From the perspective of a General Chair
"I was surprised by the number of registrations we ultimately received. We had expected 200, but there were over 280, with over 120 from Austria and over a quarter from industry. This demonstrates the broad interest in Software Engineering. Not despite, but precisely because of the current developments in the field of AI, Software Engineering (with and for AI) is becoming increasingly important," Rick rejoices over a successful conference.
From the perspective of a speaker
Shubham Sharma presented his paper titled "Modularization Guidelines to Support Control Software Variability in IEC 61499" at one of the workshops. "The discussion after my presentation was insightful as new impulses were given. For example, the question was raised regarding which aspects of the presented guidelines could be automated and presented in a future paper," says Shubham.
From the perspective of a conference guest
"I particularly liked the combination of workshops, community work, and a regular conference with presentations. I also found it exciting that various scientific works were highlighted and ultimately awarded in two competitions," summarizes Sven Mehlhop his impressions. Sven is a doctoral student at the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oldenburg and attended the SE for the first time this year.
From the perspective of a Student Volunteer
A total of 28 student volunteers contributed to the success of the conference. Anna-Lena Hager was one of them. As part of the technical team, she spent her time at the "Software Engineering im Unterricht der Hochschulen" (SEUH) conference collocated with SE. SEUH has been a forum in the German-speaking area for many years, where scholars present, discuss, and collectively improve the quality of teaching by sharing their successes, failures, and experiences in Software Engineering education. "At the end of the event, we student volunteers were invited to a panel discussion. The organizers emphasized that they particularly appreciate criticism. It was an interesting discussion - especially the topic of AI was extensively discussed," Anna-Lena says.
The LIT CPS Lab has achieved a significant milestone: the fourth candidate from our team has successfully completed her doctoral studies. On Friday, the 17th of November 2023, Bianca Wiesmayr's research career reached another peak with the successful defense of her doctoral thesis.
Bianca specialized her research in enhancing efficiency in the development of control software. She particularly investigated how behavioral descriptions can be utilized in the software development process. Notably, her research findings were largely integrated into a freely available development environment. "Completing a doctoral program was the best decision. Over the past years, I have learned so much, and at the same time, I could pursue my own ideas. I have met numerous researchers in my field with whom I collaborate. I wouldn't want to miss the experiences," says Bianca.
A week earlier, Lisa Sonnleithner also successfully completed her doctoral studies. Lisa's research focuses on the analysis and improvement of software quality in cyber-physical production systems. "I am looking forward to working as a postdoc in our team. Exciting tasks, such as leading team members, are waiting for me," says Lisa.
As Kevin Feichtinger and Kirill Dorofeev also successfully completed their doctoral studies in the preceding months, the LIT CPS Lab is now proud of a total of four freshly minted doctors. Professor Rabiser expresses his joy: "All four doctors have done outstanding work in their fields of variability modeling and control software engineering. The large number of publications in internationally renowned conferences and journals speaks for itself. The LIT CPS Lab, especially the new doctors themselves, can be very proud."
"Each of these dissertations began with an idea. Months and years of continuous work were necessary to turn these ideas into such excellent research papers. Now our graduates can not only be proud of their degrees, but also look forward to the new stages in their lives that are associated with these achievements," says Professor Zoitl.
![[Translate to Englisch:] 2 Doktorinnen, 2 Doktoren: Erfolg am LIT CPS Lab](/fileadmin/_processed_/a/a/csm_23-11_Doktorinnen_2c776a943b.jpg)
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