For this specific project, a data system was developed which concerned the archiving and display of data from the experiments, which take place in the company’s laboratory.

Problem

Following information from the company, which came into contact with Depia Automations, an analysis of the requirements and problems faced in the data production and analysis process was carried out and in collaboration with the managers of the said company and the software department of Depia Automations, specific problems were identified .

Company officials, working on a research project to manufacture innovative flexible photovoltaics with a state-of-the-art production line, needed an easy way to compare, design new, and look back on past experiments.

Since the specific way did not exist in the given time period, the efficiency and speed of the process of designing and executing the experiments ranged at low levels, as the researchers spent a lot of time in designing experiments as well as recreating the already successful ones. More generally, the performance of the overall system needed to be increased, which would undoubtedly boost the company’s economy.

• Planning

The experienced programmers and developers of Depia Automations after they have recorded and shared, in cooperation with the respective managers and the staff of the company, the above issues that were identified, started planning development.. The goal was to develop an application which would give the enabling the company’s researchers to have access to the entire reasoning behind previous experiments, the materials used, the experiment data and the results obtained. In addition, it was necessary to have the ability to design a new experiment from scratch, with visualization capabilities. When a modern programming language, is chosen the code development plan for each was carefully designed for each section of an experiment separately.

• Implementation

Since the software development planning was completed, taking into account all the factors, we proceeded to develop the code in C#. The specific language was chosen because it is a modern, widely used and recognized, as well as easily extensible programming language. To record and save the overall process of an experiment, as said above, it was necessary to export the data automatically from the experimental production line used of the photovoltaic panels. For this reason, it was deemed necessary to configure a database, adapted to the needs of the software, and to connect it with the program under development in order to store all the parameters and data of the experiments. Simultaneously with the aforementioned implementations, regular visits were made to the company to familiarize the researchers with the use of the used application, but also to receive feedback for its continuous improvement.

• Result

Going from a process that did not use technology to the desired extent, in terms of recording, displaying and analyzing the data of the experiments, to a modern application with dynamic capabilities, we managed to maximize the productivity and performance of the system, since now the process planning, retrieval and execution of the experiments was formatted and organized in an electronic format. The effectiveness of the experiments has increased to a significant extent, since now researchers can easily through our application refer to the older experiments, compare them, and rerun them. A consequence of the above was the given increase in the speed of the overall process as well as in the reliability and accuracy of the experiments. In conclusion, the overall process became faster, more efficient, saving valuable time from the researchers and generally maximizing the economy of the system and the company.