At the CAPE-OPEN 2022 Annual Meeting, a workshop was organized about the future of CAPE-OPEN, denoted as CAPE-OPEN 2.0. The workshop was introduced by a presentation (PDF, 262 Kbytes) by Michel PONS (contractor, CO-LaN CTO).
In the presentation, the several steps, taken over the last few years, to define the future of CAPE-OPEN, are listed and described. The implementation status of the various sections of the CAPE-OPEN standard are explained as well as what version 1.1 and version 1.2 of the CAPE-OPEN standard contain. Rather evidently the adoption of many aspects of the CAPE-OPEN standard is low.
What needs to be done to develop adoption, what software vendors and end-users are looking for in CAPE-OPEN, what is missing in the current version of CAPE-OPEN?
Bjorn MARIBO-MOGENSEN at Hafnium Labs asked for a stronger focus on simple additional CAPE-OPEN interfaces, like being capable to provide additional functionality on streams, rather than a large chunk of possibilities like Flowsheet Monitoring is. Hafnium Labs doesn’t see Flowsheet Monitoring adopted any time soon by major commercial software vendors, whatever the qualities of the interface design.
Richard SZCZEPANSKI at KBC stressed out that adoption of each part of the CAPE-OPEN standard depends heavily on the organizations that pay for the application that implements CAPE-OPEN. Clients have to tell what they are looking for and they are the ones capable to push for adoption by software vendors.
Olaf BERGLIHN at SINTEF pointed out that software vendors are usually promoting their internal APIs rather than CAPE-OPEN interfaces. SINTEF has developed a strong message towards commercial software vendors: SINTEF is not interested in proprietary APIs but in CAPE-OPEN. SINTEF believes that the same message should be delivered by more end-users. SINTEF reports that the amount of effort spent by software vendors to make and keep their software compliant with the CAPE-OPEN standard, is very different from one vendor to another. In light of this, there is no need for additional functionality bringing in more complexity, but for a better compliance with the standard. The more uniform the adoption, the more CAPE-OPEN will be used. SINTEF mentioned having cut ties with a simulation software provider because of their lack of support of CAPE-OPEN.
While Jasper van BATEN considered that implementing Flowsheet Monitoring in a process simulator does not require a large effort, Hafnium Labs called for smaller incremental steps in the CAPE-OPEN standard so that their implementation may be conducted quickly.