A methodological support for designing industrial control systems

Currently, new methodological approaches using model based engineering principles are necessary for developing automation control systems. This work presents a tool that provides support for the analysis and design phases in order to generate the functional model which is the starting point for the model based development. The tool combines the use of GEMMA (Guide d´Étude des Modes de Marches et d´Arrêts), use cases and GRAFCET (GRAphe Fonctionnel de Commande, Etapes, Transitions). GEMMA is a guide to address the systematically search for all states in which an automated process can evolve and so, it is used to identify the operation modes. Use cases are used to discover the actors that take part in each operation mode, while a set of GRAFCET templates assists in the design of the use cases.