Efficient and Flexible Test Automation in Production Systems Engineering

Context and background: In Production Systems Engineering (PSE), software and systems testing are success-critical along the production automation life cycle to identify defects early and efficiently. Although test automation concepts enable continuous integration and tests during engineering and maintenance, tool chains are often hardwired, less flexible, and inefficient. Thus, there is a need for more flexible tool chains to support verification and validation of control code variants. Objective: In this book chapter, we (a) describe a flexible Test Automation Framework (TAF) to enable continuous integration and tests and (b) provide an adapted maintenance process to enable efficient verification and validation of control code variants. Method: We build on best practices from Software Engineering and Software Testing to establish a flexible TAF based on Behavior-Driven Testing. We use the Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) as foundation for human-based verification and validation. We developed an initial prototype derived from industry partners and used an Industry 4.0 Testbed for evaluation. Results and conclusion: First results of the prototype implementation with selected testing tools showed the capability of the TAF concept for supporting flexible configurations of testing tool chains. The AST concept can support the human-based verification and validation of control code variants.