Development and Validation of a Reference Architecture for the Smart Schoolhouse

From a military operations perspective, the primary goals of the Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) [Ref. 1] are Affordable Life Cycle Cost (ALC), Maintain Capability Overmatch (MCO), and Faster-to-Field (FtF). Achieving these goals is directly related to the ability of the architecture to enable reuse and interoperability. The importance of this association is amplified with the assumption of a Family of System (FoS) acquisition where mission-level capabilities are needed by multiple products. Accordingly, the value of MOSA to architecture development in a FoS acquisition is directly related to the ability of the resulting architecture to enable reuse and interoperability of capabilities across the products that comprise the FoS. Not only is the resulting architecture a key enabler, but the governance of that architecture is also critical to long-term success for a FoS with products that are not on the exact same development timeline. Model-Based Engineering (MBE) within a digital thread offers structures and processes that assist both architecture development and governance while integrating the best features of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) [Ref. 2], DevSecOps [Ref. 3, 4, 5, 6], open system standards, and Agile methodologies [Ref. 7]. However, the usage of such structures and processes needs to be done carefully to avoid situations in which the process itself can enable the intended or unintended consequence of sacrificing the benefits of MOSA while implementing the process. Without the right discipline, even developers with the best intentions for achieving MOSA benefits can end up building architectures, components, and build processes that inhibit the realization of MOSA benefits and complicate governance to an intractable level [Ref. 8]. Another concern is organizations that actually seek flaws in the development or governance processes and use those flaws to claim compliance with MOSA while at the same time embedding locks to guarantee future business contrary to MOSA goals. This paper will identify the discipline needed to achieve the benefits of MOSA in a FoS acquisition and recommendations for architecture development and life cycle governance. Building upon previous work [Ref. 9], this paper will present use cases and examples of pitfalls to avoid with suggestions on how to avoid them. The most significant recommendation provided in this paper is the development of a component-based architecture to be used as a basis to identify opportunities for reuse and interoperability across products and how to use it to establish a governance framework for an FoS-based acquisition. This paper describes the steps to derive a component-based architecture starting with a modeled reference architecture. Derivation follows the pattern endorsed by the US Government in their Comprehensive Architecture Strategy [Ref. 10] and includes process steps for iterative top-down decomposition and bottom-up re-composition. This paper presents study results on applying these principles against an example reference architecture. A digital map component is used as a representative example to highlight the pitfalls of reverse engineering a component architecture from an a priori system and a specific component implementation. Results will support the hypotheses that: (1) use of a reference architecture supports the creation of a baseline, point of departure, set of components aligned to an FoS product line, and (2) governance at the component level is best for a FoS acquisition.

Variety management is a cross-domain issue in product family design. In the real field, the relationships across the domains are so complex for most of the existing product families that they cannot be easily identified without proper reference architecture. This reference architecture should provide the cross- domain mapping mechanisms in an explicit manner and be able to identify the proper units for management. From this perspective of cross-domain framework, this paper introduces development architecture (DA) to describe the relationships between elements in market, design, and production domains and to give insights for the cross-domain variety management in the product development stage. DA has three parts: (1) the arrangement of elements in each domain, (2) the mapping between elements, and (3) the identification of management sets and key interfaces which are the proper units for variety management. The proposed development architecture framework is applied to the case of front chassis family of modules of an automobile.

Nowadays, digital transformation is increasing in all business areas as it introduces new business strategies, business models, business processes and information systems. The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the major drivers and accelerators of this digital transformation. In fact, it is a new environment where several smart objects are connected and collaborate anytime and anywhere. Therefore, it offers many opportunities and applications bringing new challenges and requirements. Due to the diversity of devices, architectures, platforms, and network protocols, IoT ecosystems presents a high level of diversity and heterogeneity as there are multiple standards and approaches. This leads to the development of several reference architectures and models to offer a starting set of buildings blocks for IoT environments and to guide the development of concrete IoT architectures and solutions. However, there is a lack of standardization and rationalization of these reference architectures and models, as, they were developed in parallel with different focus and perspectives. Two main contributions of this paper: (i) it summarizes the current state of art of IoT reference architectures and models proposed by various organizations in various countries, and (ii) it highlights their goals, objectives, application scope, architectures and their dependencies which can help researchers and practitioners to select the appropriate IoT reference architecture for their specific objectives and use cases.KeywordsDigital manufacturingDigital transformationIndustrial Internet of ThingsIndustry 4.0Internet of Things architectures

The recent growth of agent-based software systems was achieved without the development of a reference architecture. From a software engineering standpoint, a reference architecture is necessary to compare, evaluate, and integrate past, current, and future agent-based software systems. The agent systems reference architecture (ASRA) advances the agent-based system development process by providing a set of key interaction patterns for functional areas that exist between the layers and protocols of agent-based systems. Furthermore, the ASRA identifies the points for interoperability between agent-based systems and increases the level of discussion when referring to agent-based systems. This paper presents methodology, grounded in software forensics, to develop the ASRA and provides an overview of the resulting architectural representation. The methodology uses an approach based on software engineering techniques adapted to study agent frameworks-the libraries and tools for building agent systems. The resulting ASRA can serve as an abstract representation of the components necessary for facilitating comparison, integration, and interoperation of software systems composed of agents.

A software reference architecture specifies a generic architectural solution for the development of specific software architectures. It includes common components to all software architectures and their relationships, a common vocabulary, a mapping methodology for realizing a specific architecture and good design practices. Software agents represent an evolution of traditional software, having the ability to control their own behavior and acting with autonomy. Typically, software agents act reactively, where actions and perceptions are predefined at design time, or in a deliberative way, where the corresponding action for a given perception is found at run time through a process of reasoning. However, to perform better, software agents should act using both forms of behavior with learning abilities in a hybrid way. In this paper, a reference architecture that specifies a generic architectural solution for the development of specific architectures of hybrid learning agents is presented. An example of realization of this architecture in the network intrusion domain is also presented.

A major payoff from systematic and rigorous application of MBSE results from cost and time savings that are achieved through reuse of designs, product information, integration and test materials, data models, timing analyses, and many other artifacts of system architecture. In this chapter, we explore the primary approach to such reuse, which is the development and use of reference architectures (RAs). First, we introduce the RA concept, and we define terms and highlight the role of RAs in MBSAP. We then lay out a systematic approach to the creation, archiving, retrieval, tailoring, and use of RAs in real development programs, stressing the nature of an RA as a system-level design pattern. We illustrate these ideas using the E-X system example. We extend the RA concept using SysML constructs like Profiles and Libraries. We discuss architecture frameworks, which are closely allied to RAs and can facilitate effective architecture reuse, and we discuss a number of recognized frameworks. We then conclude the RA topic by carrying it to the level of product line architectures that are predicated on efficiently tailoring RA content to meet related but distinct customer needs in a well-defined system or product category. Chapter Objective: the reader will be able to employ the MBSAP methodology to develop, model, and apply RAs as a means of reusing proven architecture content in new system developments.

The concept of schematic architecture is introduced as a guide for the organization and systematic development of the set of concepts generally identified, indistinctly, as architectures or reference models in the literature. The difference, proposed by some authors, between reference architecture and reference model is shown as a basis for schematic architecture. In this paper, an analysis is given showing the relationship between the meanings of both concepts under the object oriented paradigm: generalization/specialization versus instantiation. The location, and relationship between these expressions, is shown as a instantiation hierarchy that simplifies (by means of bounding its space), not only the development and analysis of the reference architecture and the reference model but also its application to a given system in the form of a particular model. The proposed schematic architecture was used for the development of a reference architecture, a reference model (implemented in the form of a framework), for the production shop floor computerized control. The proposed system has been validated applying it to several particular production systems.

This chapter explores how architecture principle development is actually applied in a specific context. The approach is strongly determined by a number of factors such as the type of architecture, the architecture maturity level and the culture. With respect to the type of architecture, the role of architecture principles in enterprise architectures, solution architectures and reference architectures is very different. In an enterprise architecture they are very strategic, and specific to the organization, while in a reference architecture they are much more tactical and generic in nature. Architecture maturity determines the amount of rigor that is applied in architecture development. At a low level of maturity the process can be very informal, and success is determined by the knowledge and experience of individual architects. At a high level, architecture principles form an integral part of the process, and all stakeholders are involved in their definition and application. Culture is also a factor that strongly impacts the architecture principle development process. Architects are inclined to approach architecture as a rational, top-down process. In practice, organizations have their own way of dealing with change, such as power, motivation, learning and inherent change.

In our former work we proposed a micro service-based reference architecture for Enterprise Measurement Infrastructures (EMI) which received encouraging feedback. The reference architecture supports the systematic development of measurement systems. This paper provides deeper insight into the application of the reference architecture by presenting the results of two field studies after an examination of the most important requirements that drove the development of the reference architecture. The two selected field studies were conducted with large cooperation partners from industry and research and addressed real problems. Using our reference architecture, development process, and requirements gathering techniques we were able to successfully build the EMIs presented in this paper. These results further ease the application of micro service inside our reference architecture and support practitioners with specific examples.

Although the competence level in pharmaceutical cold chain logistics is adequate in the current healthcare sector, the future will be more unpredictable, disruptive, and chaotic than the world of today because of rapid technological changes, as well as social disruption. This work introduces and evaluates a new cold chain structure based on the enhanced reference process model (RPM) and reference architecture (RA) for the pharmaceutical cold chain competence design. The modified Delphi technique is used to design a systematic decision context to evaluate the improved RPM and RA and produce a competence design by obtaining agreement from a panel of experts. Ten experts in cold chain logistics took part in the modified Delphi assessment process to describe the model and architecture for an evaluation lead. They defined it as the assessment associated with the professional related to cold chain accreditation. Ten participants from six countries were asked questions regarding their expertise, abilities, and opinions in the first round, and their comments were collected. In the second and third rounds, comments and consensus were collected, which were set at 80% for RPM and RA. This work proposes an innovative scheme for developing occupational standards based on the RPM and RA, as opposed to the traditional method of employing functional analysis to establish occupational standards. This work can be further expanded to develop professional competencies in the pharmaceutical cold chain.

Reference Architecture and Agile Development Method for a Process-Driven Web Platform based on the BPMN-Standard and Process Engines

In their paper on “A Generalized Systems Engineering Reuse Framework and Its Cost Estimating Relationships,” (Wang, Roedler, et al. 2014) present an approach for estimation of systems engineering effort that extends the COSYSMO equation to account for the effort associated with Design With Reuse and Design For Reuse classification categories in the Generalized Reuse Framework. Implementation of this approach for cost estimation clearly depends on two critical items: (1) the ability to accurately and consistently count the size drivers; and (2) the ability to calibrate the model equation. As part of future work, they also describe the potential to use this approach as a management tool in architecture development – “a cataloging mechanism in organizing components of reference architecture.” This paper presents a practical implementation of the COSYSMO cost estimating relationship through extension of a Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) modeling environment with SysML for estimating end‐to‐end systems engineering effort in developing a system. The approach provides a new way of rapidly creating cost estimates, conducting cost‐based analysis and trade studies with full traceability from the cost estimation parameters back to the architecture of referenced system of interest.

Prescriptive analytics plays an important role in decision making in smart factories by utilizing the available data to gain actionable insights. The planning, integration and development of such use cases still poses manifold challenges. Use cases are still being implemented as standalone versions; the existing IT-infrastructure is not fit for integrative bidirectional decision communication, and implementations only reach low technical readiness levels. We propose a reference architecture for the integration of prescriptive analytics use cases in smart factories. The method for the empirically grounded development of reference architectures by Galster and Avgeriou serves as a blueprint. Through the development and validation of a specific IoT-Factory use case, we demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed reference architecture. We expand the given reference architecture for one use case to the integration of a smart factory and its application to multiple use cases. Moreover, we identify the interdependency among multiple use cases within dynamic environments. Our prescriptive reference architecture provides a structured way to improve operational efficiency and optimize resource allocation.

The handling of subsidy applications typically crosses several departments and organizations, each of them having their own heterogeneous applications and processes. As such, the automated processing has to overcome an immense interoperability problem. This problem is further complicated due to the continuous stream of changes in and the creation of new legislation. Therefore there is a need for an architecture enabling the orchestration and interoperability of cross-agency processes that is able to deal and able to adapt to ever-changing circumstances. In this chapter the development of a reference architecture based on the analysis of four different types of subsidy processes is presented. This reference architecture is used to ensure interoperability and to derive generic building blocks. The architecture is implemented and tested in practice by building a prototype based on web services technology. The evaluation shows that the reference architecture can be used to improve interoperability and adaptability. Adaptability can be realized using an architecture which is built from generic components and meets the conditions set by the architecture.

Consumer electronics (CE) products must be appealing to customers, have features that distinguish them in the market and be priced competitively. However, this must be achieved with limited hardware resources, so requirements engineers and architects must work together to specify an attractive product within these constraints. This requires an architectural description from early in development. The creation of this description is hampered by the lack of consensus on high-level architectural concepts for the CE domain and the rate at which novel features are added to products, so that old descriptions cannot simply be reused. This chapter describes both the development of a reference architecture that addresses these problems and the process by which the requirements and architecture are refined together. The reference architecture is independent of specific functionality and is designed to be readily adopted. The architecture is informed by information mined from previous developments and organised to be reusable in different contexts. The interplay between the roles of requirements engineer and architect, mediated through the reference architecture, is described and illustrated with an example of integrating a new feature into a mobile phone.