ArianeGroup benefits from a 184% Return of Investment when using PLC Checker thanks to quicker commissioning and easier maintenance. Find out more about the use of PLC Checker for the quality control of PLC programs in the aerospace, defence, and security industries in our ArianeGroup success story.

1. User Story
Improving PLC program quality in the aerospace and defence industries - 1
The context
ArianeGroup is a world leader in the design,
development and manufacture of solid rocket motors
for missiles and space launchers. Their products meet
demanding requirements for safety, performance,
reliability and availability.
The challenge
The very demanding domain of activity of ArianeGroup
requires advanced quality control of the manufacturing
process. However, the company previously had no way
to verify software quality for their industrial control
systems.
The solution
PLC Checker, automatic verification tool for PLC
programs is used systematically since 2010 on each and
every new or significantly modified program.
The result
Return on investment estimated at around 200% by
ArianeGroup with significant improvements of program
quality and more efficient maintenance.
Improving the quality of PLC programs
in the Aerospace and Defence industries
How ArianeGroup benefits from PLC Checker

2. User Story
Improving PLC program quality in the aerospace and defence industries - 2
THE CONTEXT
ArianeGroup is a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of solid
rocket motors for missiles and space launchers. Their products meet demanding
requirements for safety, performance, reliability and availability.
Drawing on more than 70 years of experience and an unrivalled know-how in
Europe in the field of energetic materials and thermo-structural composites for the
defence and space sectors, ArianeGroup, formerly Airbus Safran Launchers, has
broadened the scope of its technologies and diversified the application of its
expertise into a wide range of industrial sectors.
ArianeGroup has always been very focused on the quality of their manufacturing
systems but previously they had no solution to measure and verify the quality of the
programs embedded in their Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). Software quality
was measured by sampling and this approach was regarded as too limited to meet
ArianeGroup’s strict quality requirements.
THE CHALLENGE
Itris Automation has first been working with
ArianeGroup to define the process of how
to follow the quality of the PLC programs
thanks to a better measurement of the
compliance with ArianeGroup’s rules and
standards. The original method used by
ArianeGroup consisted in manual code
reviews to verify compliance. Unfortunately,
this approach had many drawbacks:
relevance and precision of the review was
highly dependent on the person in charge and
exhaustive review was basically impossible because of the huge volume of code. The
cost of the approach was also a strong limit when reviewing large applications. Finally,
the return on investment of this mandatory activity was considered as very low.
As a consequence, the development teams were looking for a solution and they
discovered the PLC Checker tool, a collaborative solution for the static analysis of PLC
programs. PLC Checker allows the detection of programming mistakes, the
computation of quality metrics and the verification of compliance with standards.
ArianeGroup was also very interested by the fact that industry leaders such as
Schneider Electric, EDF, Areva, Renault and Engie were already using the solution.
ArianeGroup has defined formal rules for
the development of their PLC programs.

3. User Story
Improving PLC program quality in the aerospace and defence industries - 3
After a first pilot project, ArianeGroup concluded that PLC Checker was the right
solution to automatically and systematically control software quality as
requested by their internal standards and with an independent third-party approach.
Pascal POTHIER, Automation Project Manager at ArianeGroup, explains: “We
decided to leverage PLC Checker for two different usages. First, we wanted to do some
one-shot audits at the end of the development, to take a “picture” of the quality. Then,
we decided to deploy PLC Checker during the whole development, to make a “movie”
to see how quality was evolving and allowing bugs to be fixed as early as possible.”
“All system integrators working on our programs are trained and granted a license of
PLC Checker for the duration of the project. They can take as many “pictures” as they
want to build the “movie” and we are very satisfied with such a continuous improvement
approach.”
THE SOLUTION
ArianeGroup and Itris Automation teams collaborated to deploy PLC Checker step by
step. First, Itris Automation engineers created a set of coding rules for ArianeGroup by
adapting the PLC Checker rules to their client’s standards and practices.
Then, at the end of 2009 and
beginning of 2010, several tests
were conducted on three
programs and quality reports
were issued. All three programs
had originally been written by
three different system
integrators and the PLC Checker
audit showed a serious diversity
in coding practices.
A couple of months later, ArianeGroup decided to use PLC Checker systematically
on each and every new, migrated or significantly modified PLC program. Feedback
from developers and users of PLC Checker has been taken into account to improve
the rules over the last nine years.
Pascal POTHIER further explains: “Between 2010 and 2012, we improved our
compliance ratio from 63% to 85% and between 2013 and 2016, we started to really
reach our quality objectives. This goes to prove that the formalization and
standardization of the development process has a great effect and we have been able
to significantly improve the maintainability of our programs.”
PLC Checker improves the maintainability and readability
of PLC programs thanks to more consistent programming
style.

4. User Story
Improving PLC program quality in the aerospace and defence industries - 4
THE RESULT
After these first use cases,
ArianeGroup decided to use PLC
Checker more widely and to roll out
its use amongst their different
factories.
“After almost ten years of using it,
we can consider that the
deployment of PLC Checker is a
success », adds Pascal POTHIER.
« Of course, at the beginning,
system integrators were reluctant
but they have been convinced by
the tool itself and now agree that
this is necessary in our industry.
Since we began using PLC Checker, our Factory Acceptance Tests have been
quicker and more efficient. Plus, the maintenance of the programs is easier. We
estimate the return on investment of the usage of PLC Checker to roughly 200% just
by counting the savings in the test and commissioning phases. The programs are
easier to read and thus to modify and correct in the factory. Also, thanks to a better
consistency, the training of our maintenance team is faster.”
The next step for ArianeGroup is to systematise the use of PLC Checker in the
maintenance phase, by using the tool at the beginning and end of their retrofit projects
to ensure that quality objectives are met across all projects.
PLC Checker is available for
 CoDeSys v2.x, v3.x
 Beckoff TwinCAT 2 and 3
 ICS Triplex ISaGRAF 4.12
 Phoenix Contact PC Worx and
MULTIPROG 5.50
 PLCopen XML
 Rockwell Automation RSLogix 5,
RSLogix 500, and RSLogix 5000
 Schneider Electric Unity Pro, PL7 Pro,
Orphee, XTEL, and SoMachine 4
 Siemens Step5, Step7, and TIA Portal
 Yokogawa Stardom
Easier maintenance and optimized troubleshooting are
a significant source of return on investment when using
PLC Checker.

5. User Story
Improving PLC programs quality in the aerospace and defence industries - 5
About Itris Automation
Based in Grenoble, France, Itris Automation is a software engineering company that
provides development and production tools for the verification, conversion,
documentation and troubleshooting of PLC codes to complement the programming
tools of international PLC vendors. Thanks to their advanced technologies, Itris
Automation helps companies improve their development processes and thus deliver
higher quality programs in shorter timeframes. The Itris Automation team are experts
in software quality and coding standards, and they have combined their knowledge
and skills to provide innovative solutions for the industry.
Schneider Electric, EDF, Sanofi, Ford, Eiffage, Soitec, and ArianeGroup are among
Itris Automation’s main customers.
For more information, please visit our website www.itris-automation.com