Home // International Journal On Advances in Systems and Measurements, volume 9, numbers 1 and 2, 2016 // View article

COTS or Custom Made? A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis for Industrial Control Systems

Authors:
Falk Salewski

Keywords: commercial of the shelf; electronic design decisions; industrial control units; MCDA

Abstract:
The choice between custom made electronics and the use of commercial of the shelf (COTS) components is often not trivial for industrial control systems. The selection is particularly challenging, when required quantities or specific requirements do not give a clear sign for the one or the other approach. While a consideration of the resulting costs (development costs and product costs) gives some indication, only a broader view helps to perform a sound decision. In this work, a set of decision criteria (targets to be reached by the control unit) and a decision method based on multi-criteria decision analysis are presented for industrial control systems. The presented approach is considering COTS devices, custom made devices as well as a combination of both. Moreover, a case study with three industrial control systems is presented showing the application of the approach.

Pages: 122 to 131

Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2016. Used with permission.

Publication date: June 30, 2016

Published in: journal

ISSN: 1942-261x