Research and development of enhanced, integrated and accessible flow metering software for industry.

Wood, Dawn Colleen

Abstract

This project was an investigation to find improvements required in the delivery of software for the flow metering industry. The project has resulted in the repackaging of existing software using appropriate technologies. This included developing software that is accessible via the web and extending functionality whereby a user can import and export information in a variety of data formats. The software was successfully revised and is now commercially accessible to the flow metering industry. The project was performed in the context of a KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnership) programme with academic supervision provided by TUV NEL (the academic partner) on the premises of KELTON® (the commercial partner) who provided day-to-day project management supervision. The project was in collaboration between the two organisations with the joint aims of facilitating knowledge transfer between the organisations and enhancing the market performance of the commercial partner. The main objective of the study was to gain a full understanding of the needs of the flow metering industry in terms of software and delivery via web or standalone application. Web based applications are new to KELTON® so it was necessary to investigate the methods of delivery. The work concentrated on investigating techniques to modularise code, allowing flexible access to data between applications and on data presentation. iv At an early stage of the project an online market survey program was developed and appropriate questions were used to get customer feedback. The results were analysed and used to prioritise work. Following the review, the current software architecture was found to be unsuitable so new approaches were investigated. The software was created using an n-tier architecture which is a method of splitting common code into separate components. Web based applications were found to be slower than standalone applications. However, web applications benefited from not having to fully install software on individual user PCs therefore allowing access from anywhere that users have access to the network.

Citation

OOD, D.C. 2007. Research and development of enhanced, integrated and accessible flow metering software for industry. Robert Gordon University, PhD thesis.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Feb 4, 2010
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 4, 2010
• Keywords: Knowledge Transfer Partnership; Flow metering
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/457
• Contract Date: Feb 4, 2010
• Award Date: Dec 31, 2007