Model-Driven Development of Logistic Systems Using Domain-Specific Tooling

The development of complex systems involves many people from different disciplines, each communicating with his own jargon. These different languages may lead to misunderstandings between stakeholders that cause a significant increase of development costs. This paper addresses this communication gap by proposing the usage of domain-specific tooling, which is shared by all stakeholders. We argue that logistic systems are well suited for the usage of such tooling. This is illustrated by the application of domain-specific tooling in the warehousing domain. We present a warehouse-specific graphical configuration tool built on top of a warehouse-specific language and apply it to an industrial automated case picking warehouse. This application shows that the communication gap between specification and implementation can be reduced by introducing parameterised components and behaviours and local optimisation rules with well-defined interfaces.