© Tony Simmons 2010
Select the first letter of the word from the list above to jump to appropriate section of the glossary. If the term you are looking for starts with a digit or symbol, choose the '#' link.
Glossary of Automation & Control Engineering Terms
Update
Whenever a change is actioned, the affected system documentation or software must be updated and the issue or revision reference incremented as appropriate.
UKOOA
UK Offshore Operators Association Limited. UKOOA have produced various guidelines including one for Instrument-based Protective Systems - December 1995.
UML
Universal Markup Language.
UML defines twelve types of diagrams, divided into three categories: Four diagram types represent static application structure; five represent different aspects of dynamic behaviour; and three represent ways you can organize and manage your application modules.
Structural Diagrams include the Class Diagram, Object Diagram, Component Diagram, and Deployment Diagram.
Behaviour Diagrams include the Use Case Diagram (used by some methodologies during requirements gathering); Sequence Diagram, Activity Diagram, Collaboration Diagram, and Statechart Diagram.
Model Management Diagrams include Packages, Subsystems, and Models.
UPS
UPS - Uninterruptable Power Supply used to support a control system during power failure so that plant operations can be safely shut down if necessary.
URL
Universal Resource Locator
URS
User Requirements Specification
Validation
Establishing documented evidence which provides a high degree of assurance that a specific process will consistently produce a product meeting its pre-determined specifications and quality attributes. [FDA Guidelines on General Principles of Process Validation May 1987]
Variant
A variant is an instance of an "item" defined to satisfy a particular requirement. When several conflicting requirements must be met, variants which represent functional differences within the item will be established and these may be developed concurrently.
Verification
Confirmation by examination and provision of objective evidence that the specified requirements have been fulfilled.
A "version" is an instance of an "item" or a "variant" created at a particular time. Successive issues and revisions represent progressions in time.
Version and Variant Control
This is concerned with the unique identification of all relevant "items" and the recording of the history of their development through successive versions, permitting this history to be perused retrospectively and previous states of parts of the project to be restored selectively. Version control is responsible for ensuring that all items are reliably stored so that this restoration is always possible.
Version control requires the unique identification of every system "item". It is essential for good CM that item relationships can be tracked in such a way as to show on demand the part/part-of and uses/used-by relationship between items.
Walkthrough
A Walkthrough is where a designer or programmer leads one or more other members of the design team through a segment of design or code that he or she has written, while the other members ask questions and make comments about technique, style, possible errors, violation of development standards and other problems (IEEE).
WAE
Wireless Application Environment
WAP
Wireless Access Protocol
