ago to thousands of lines of code with a similar number of 1/O points. Increased safety, for instance new policies on fire protection, and the flexibility of modern automation systems add complexity to the program design process. Consequently, the life-cycle cost of software is a permanently growing fraction of the total cost. 80-90% of these costs are going into software maintenance, debugging, adaptation and expansion to meet changing needs.

Today, the primary focus of most design research is based on mechanical or electrical products. One of the by-products of this proposed research is to enhance our fundamental understanding of design theory and methodology by extending it to the field of engineering systems design. A system design theory for large-scale and complex system is not yet fully developed. Particularly, the question of how to simplify a complicated or complex design task has not been tackled in a scientific way. Furthermore, building a bridge between design theory and the latest epistemological outcomes of formal representations in computer sciences and operations research, such as discrete event system modeling, can advance future development in engineering design.

From a logical perspective, PLC software design is similar to the hardware design of integrated circuits. Modern VLSI designs are extremely complex with several million parts and a product development time of 3 years [Whitney, 1996]. The design process is normally separated into a component design and a system design stage. At component design stage, single functions are designed and verified. At system design stage, components are aggregated and the whole system behavior and functionality is tested through simulation. In general, a complete verification is impossible. Hence, a systematic approach as exemplified for the PLC program design may impact the logical hardware design.

Part 5 AK 1703 ACP

Following the principle of our product development, AK 1703 ACP has high functionality and flexibility, through the implementation of innovative and reliable technologies, on the stable basis of a reliable product platform.

For this, the system concept ACP (Automation, Control and Protection) creates the technological preconditions. Balanced functionality permits the flexible combination of automation, telecontrol and communication tasks. Complemented with the scalable