Master Thesis Work - Industrializing e-SBOM Traceability across DevOps, Windchill and Product Lifecycle Systems

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Your role and responsibilities

Execution of this Thesis work will be done within ABB Automation PCP, a unit within ABB’s business area Process Automation. Automation PCP develops automation products - hardware and software - for monitoring, process control and optimization. We have automation products for all kind of industries.

Within Automation PCP, we would like to continue the previous master's thesis on extended Software Bills of Materials (e-SBOMs) by moving from a successful proof of concept toward an industrially usable, governed, and maintainable solution. The work should investigate how artifact-centric e-SBOM information can be generated, exchanged, aggregated, baselined, and traced across the software lifecycle and across ABB engineering systems.

Details:

•  Period: TBD

•  Number of credits: 30 ECTS

•  Number of students for this thesis work: 1 or 2

•  Location: Mostly on site - Malmo, Sweden

The thesis will investigate an architecture in which development environments and CI/CD pipelines generate controlled e-SBOM metadata for exact artifact versions, while product-lifecycle, release, and vulnerability-management systems consume appropriate views of that information. The study should use ABB System 800xA as the main case, but the proposed principles and interfaces should be generic enough for reuse by other ABB products and customer systems.

The work should explicitly address integration and governance boundaries among systems such as Azure DevOps, Windchill, Dependency-Track, source repositories, artifact repositories, and approved release-documentation or archive locations. A key topic is how to avoid uncontrolled duplication while preserving authoritative ownership, immutable release evidence, product-level traceability, and continuously updated vulnerability information.

A proof-of-concept implementation is expected. It should use e.g. scripts and REST APIs to demonstrate a representative flow from a controlled build artifact to an e-SBOM, aggregation or transformation, validation, and publication or registration in a downstream system. The proof of concept should include automated checks and readable output for both tools and human reviewers.

Research questions to consider as input:

•  How can an artifact-centric e-SBOM information model extend standard SBOM data without duplicating information already governed in other systems?

•  How should identity, version, revision, dependency, lifecycle state, provenance, build information, test evidence, requirements, and product or release relationships be represented and validated?

•  Which system should be authoritative for each data element, and how should conflicting or superseded information be detected and resolved?

•  How can e-SBOMs be generated and aggregated automatically across component, product, and system levels while detecting missing references, cycles, incompatible versions, and unresolved dependencies?

•  How should Windchill, Dependency-Track, Azure DevOps, and archive-safe release documentation exchange information while separating released baselines from changing vulnerability-monitoring views?

•  What measurable benefits and limitations does the proposed solution provide for traceability, impact analysis, reproducibility, lifecycle management, compliance evidence, and configuration status accounting?

Expected result:

The expected result is a master's-level thesis containing a literature and standards review, stakeholder and requirements analysis, a documented logical architecture and information model, a working proof of concept, and an evaluation using representative ABB use cases. The report should provide implementable recommendations, known limitations, security and maintenance considerations, and a roadmap from proof of concept to production use.

Qualifications for the role

• ABB are looking for students for a thesis work at master’s degree level in Software Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Industrial Engineering, or a related field.
• ABB are looking for students in the education phase where a thesis project is needed to finalize the education.
• You have at least a basic understanding of configuration management, including configuration items, identification, baselines, versioning, change control, status accounting, and traceability.
• You understand DevOps and CI/CD concepts and have practical experience with scripting and REST APIs, for example using Python or PowerShell.
• You have general knowledge of Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs), software dependencies, software supply-chain information, and lifecycle traceability.
• You can work analytically with information distributed across tools and can evaluate both technical solutions and governance aspects such as data ownership, authoritative sources, maintainability, and auditability.
• English is ABB's defined corporate language. Understanding Swedish will simplify collaboration but is not mandatory.

More about us

We value people from different backgrounds. Apply today for your next career step within ABB and visit www.abb.com to learn about the impact of our solutions across the globe. #MyABBStory

Recruiting Manager Ali Houmani, +46 72 461 43 24.
For technical thesis related questions please contact Christer Wibom, +46 761369496.

Positions are filled continuously. Please apply with your CV, academic transcripts, and a cover letter in English.

We look forward to receiving your application!

A future opportunity

This role is part of our talent pipeline, which means it’s not currently open, but we’re always looking for curious minds, bold thinkers, and people who want to make an impact.

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At ABB, we welcome people from all backgrounds and believe that diverse perspectives help us build a cleaner, smarter future.

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