Machine Simulation for Workflow Integration Testing

This paper addresses the problems of modeling and simulating physical machines, part of complex industrial production lines. The direct execution of industrial workflows on production line machines before integration testing can be very expensive and may lead to improper machine operation and even to non recoverable faults. In order to simulate the execution of industrial workflow models for integration testing purposes, we propose a physical machine simulator based on nondeterministic, probability- based state machines. For each physical machine a behavioral model is constructed using operational scenarios followed by its translation into a state machine representation. The proposed simulator was used for a sausage preparing production line in the context of the food trace project.