Abstract
The concept of Technical Debt describes a situation in which a technical compromise is made despite better knowledge. The survey presented delivers insights on Technical Debt in 48 German companies supplying automated production systems. The participating companies do have some immediate benefits from taking Technical Debt under time pressure, but encounter a significant higher long-term additional effort to recover from technical debt. However, awareness for Technical Debt at these companies is low. Therefore, the automated production system manufacturers need to keep a closer eye on expenditure for Technical Debt. The developed survey can be used as a self-assessment method for other companies to compare their results with the average results from this survey.
Highlights
Introduction and motivationTechnical Debt (TD) describes a situation in which a technical compromise is made, e.g., delivering not-quite-right code in order to meet an urgent deadline [1]
When the electrical discipline takes TD benefit, 43% of TD interest is shifted to the software discipline and electrical engineers form the majority in 33% of these projects (cf. (4), Fig. 4). 43% of TD interest occurs in electrics and electrical engineers are the majority in 66% of these projects (cf. (3), Fig. 4). 14% of TD interest occurs at mechanics and electrical engineers are the majority in none of these projects (cf. (5), Fig. 4)
For H4.2, the software discipline has the highest votes from both management (30.56%) and specialists (34.38%) for disciplines taking TD benefit, it is assumed that this perception might be from bad bug fixes from the software engineers
Summary
Introduction and motivationTechnical Debt (TD) describes a situation in which a technical compromise is made, e.g., delivering not-quite-right code in order to meet an urgent deadline [1]. The technical compromise chosen can yield a short-term benefit (TD benefit) but may cause a long-term negative impact (TD interest) on the system quality or the productivity of engineers [2]. The concept of TD can be transferred to the development of automated Production Systems (aPS), which are used nowadays to create products in various sectors, including automated packaging, pharmaceutical production or food processing. APS are designed by engineers from the three disciplines mechanical, electrical and software. Other disciplines such as hydraulic, pneumatic, sensor or drive technology may get involved whenever needed. Analysing TD in the software discipline at one aPS company, Besker et al [3] suggested to include mechanical and electrical disciplines to software
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