AutomationML for user requirements fulfilment related to engineering process efficiency

The demand for decreasing time to market poses as major challenge to shorten the engineering process of technical systems. Considering the engineering process from the initial mission to build a technical system through to the final system commissioning, engineering has become increasingly expensive in terms of time and money. The improvement of individual tools and improved interoperability of tools are two common approaches used to help meet this demand. This paper contributes to answering the question of which approach seems to be more advantageous by reporting the results from a questionnaire-based survey. The questionnaire was distributed to experts from a wide range of disciplines with different backgrounds in automation engineering. The experts were asked about the importance of different tool functionalities regarding engineering process phases and activities and by when they expect these functions to be implemented in tools. This paper analyzes the results of the questionnaire focusing on the entire engineering process of technical systems.