Malcolm reminds everyone that version 0.1.0 of the CO-LaN Test Suite was demonstrated live at the CAPE-OPEN 2021 Annual Meeting. As defined then, an updated version (v 0.1.1) was made available in February 2022 to the set of organizations having agreed, during the CAPE-OPEN 2021 Annual Meeting, to review the CO-LaN Test Suite . Compared to version 0.1.0, version 0.1.1 contained resolution of 33 support tickets and took into account the feedback received at the CAPE-OPEN 2021 Annual Meeting. Malcolm emphasizes that tests included in version 0.1.1 were far from exhaustive, and were not approved by the relevant CO-LaN Special Interest Groups (SIGs), especially the Thermo SIG and the Methods & Tools SIG. Five organizations, members of CO-LaN, had volunteered to act as reviewers: ChemSep, HTRI, Linde, ProSim SA, and SINTEF.
Malcolm details what three of the reviewers reported and experienced. It is worth mentioning that the relatively narrow scope of tests embedded then in the CO-LaN Test Suite was still sufficient to pinpoint an implementation error in one Property Package, leading to a modification of this Property Package being released by the vendor.
This review is considered as successful: it identified critical defects in CO-LaN Test Suite, as well as necessary future improvements. On top of that a non-compliance with the CAPE-OPEN standard was identified in a Property Package, and subsequently fixed by its vendor.
Malcolm next describes how an experiment has been conducted on how to document the tests and implement them. The Methods & Tools SIG, as reported earlier at the CAPE-OPEN 2022 Annual Meeting, created a template for documenting tests, while defining tests on implementations of the Identification Common Interface Specification. Then CO-LaN CTO developed a preliminary list of tests on interfaces implemented by a Property Package, AmsterCHEM reviewed that list before handing it over to Céondo GmbH for documenting a subset of these tests in a specification document and next hardcoding this subset within the CO-LaN Test Suite. A review by AmsterCHEM of the detailed specification and of the implementation was performed. This experiment used a shortcut compared to the envisioned process of developing tests since the input of the full Thermo SIG was not used. Still the experiment shows that it takes between one and two hours to document and implement a test.
Apart from evaluating the amount of work necessary to develop tests, the experiment showed that CAPE-OPEN interface specifications have not been written with the development of tests in mind. Updates are required to the CAPE-OPEN interface specification documents, and Malcolm points out that one outcome of the CO-LaN Test Suite production may be improved interface specification documentation.
After a successful live demonstration of using version 0.2.0 of CO-LaN Test Suite, Malcolm lists first the short term plans and then the long term plans of CO-LaN Test Suite development project. All open support tickets will be addressed in the 4th quarter of 2022 leading to the release of version 0.2.1 that will be made available to any member willing to review it. Then with an expected end during first quarter of 2023, the documentation and implementation of the full range of tests (compliancy and best practice) for Property Packages will be conducted. By the end of 2023, Malcolm expects that the compliancy and best practice tests applicable to Unit Operations will have been implemented, leading to a new version of the CO-LaN Test Suite.
Next will come the extension of the Test Suite to Process Modelling Environments (PMEs). Malcolm exposes the proposed methodology for conducting compliancy and best practice tests on PMEs.
Malcolm reports that there has been no change to the Certification process since it was described at the CAPE-OPEN 2021 Annual Meeting. Malcolm summarizes the process as it stands.
This leads then to a workshop where user and developer feedback is heard.
Within the CAPE-OPEN 2022 Annual Meeting playlist, a recording of this presentation is available on the CAPE-OPEN YouTube channel.