Keynote Lectures

Co-simulation: A Research Agenda
Hans Vangheluwe, University of Antwerp, Belgium, Belgium

Model-based Approaches for Interoperability of Next Generation Organization Information Systems: State of the Art and Future Challenges
Gregory Zacharewicz, IMT - Mines Ales, France, France

The Vital Role of Simulation for Many Disciplines: A Desirable Shift of Paradigm from Model-Based Paradigm to Simulation-Based Paradigm
Tuncer Ören, University of Ottawa, Canada, Canada

Abstract
The relationship between system integrators and their suppliers puts ever increasing demands on modelling and simulation technology.
The supplier wants (1) to evaluate, using modelling and simulation, the suitability/optimality of a single component available multiple suppliers
and (2) to perform early system integration and evaluation of multiple heterogeneous components developed by different suppliers. The evaluation may cover both functional and non-functional (e.g., safety, energy efficiency) properties. The challenge is to perform full-system evaluation while keeping supplier IP protected.

In this presentation, different alternative solutions will be investigated, with a particular focus on co-simulation. In co-simulation, suppliers share only pre-compiled components, known as Functional Mockup Units (FMUs). The FMUs hide IP, but do expose sufficient information in their API to allow for meaningful orchestrated co-simulation. The current Functional Mockup Interface (FMI) standard defines both an intra-FMU model-simulation solver interface and an extra-FMU interface between the FMU (a model/simulation solver combination) and the context in which it is used. FMUs are commonly combined using a "master" simulator which orchestrates the interleaving of the individual simulators.

An obvious challenge with pre-compiled components which expose only limited information is to guarantee overall correct simulation results. Correctness ranges from numerical stability to satisfying domain invariants (e.g., physics conservation laws). At the root of this is the need for compositionality of the components.

The presentation will further explore some research challenges: optimizing overall simulation performance by constructing optimal master algorithms; the combination of multiple modelling formalisms (in particular, continuous-discrete combinations); the inclusion of models at different levels of abstraction in a single FMU; support for dynamic-structure models, including possible changes in computational causality; the introduction of non-deterministic models, to for example model the environment in which a system operates.

Abstract
Enterprise businesses are more than ever challenged by competitors that frequently refine and tailor their offers to clients. In this context, enterprise information systems (EIS) are especially important because: (1) they remain one of the last levers to increase the performance and competitiveness of the enterprise, (2) we operate in a business world where the product itself has reached a limit of performance and quality due to uniform capacity of industrial tools in a globalized economy and (3) the EIS can increase the product value thanks to additional digital services (built on data associated to the product) in order to meet and fit better client’s needs.

However, the use of EISs reaches a limit in collaborative environments because enterprises management methods diverge and EISs are mainly inflexible resource packages that are not built with an interoperability objective. Consequently, we need to make EISs interoperable in order to achieve the needed gains competitiveness and performance.

This keynote can be summarized as follows: (1) it will try to relate existing work and it examines barriers that, at the moment, are preventing further improvements due to current methodological and techno- logical limits, and (2) it will propose a conceptual framework and five challenges that model based approaches must overcome to achieve interoperability between EIS in the near and long term. (3) It will draw out how the use of simulation can support the model based approaches in the journey from concepts to technical deployment. As well, it will discuss the position of human as individual and member of social networks in this process.

Abstract
The maturity and versatility of simulation make it a vital ingredient for many engineering, scientific, and social disciplines. Hence, a shift from model-based paradigm to simulation-based paradigm is in order. This shift brings back the philosophical work of Francis Bacon that he clarified in 1620 in his New Organon (Baconian method) as a revolt to Aristotelian approach that Aristo explained in his Organon. In late 1970s and early 1980s, the foundations of model-based approach were laid off; now the shift of paradigm to simulation-based paradigm would bring its benefits to wherever experimentation and/or experiment would be beneficial. As a recent example, one can consider what would have occurred if simulation was used to test the effect of the sensors (experimentation effect) as well as to properly train the pilots (experience effect), before the occurrence of fatal results. Simulation may require some time and may cost; however, not performing simulation may have catastrophic results. Welcome to simulation-based era.