Michael HALLORAN has decided to not renew his contractual arrangements with CO-LaN which ended on May 31, 2021.
Michael has been involved with CAPE-OPEN since the early days of the project.
While working for AspenTech in Cambridge, UK, he implemented the first CAPE-OPEN interfaces in Aspen Plus. As part of this work, he participated in the Interoperability Task Force within the Global CAPE-OPEN project. There, under the leadership of the late Peter BANKS, Michael together with two other developers, Daniel PINOL (Hyprotech), and Richard SZCZEPANSKI (then Infochem Computer Services), worked to test and debug the first implementations of CAPE-OPEN in commercial process simulation software. During these intensive sessions, under the oversight of Malcolm WOODMAN (BP) and Michel PONS (TOTAL), modifications were made, on the fly, to the vendor software to ensure successful interoperability. The success of this joint work led CO-LaN to give the CAPE-OPEN Award to these three developers.
During his time at AspenTech Michael was also heavily involved in the development of the VB6 Unit Operation Wizard developed at AspenTech and then passed on to CO-LaN.
Michael was also a major writer of version 1.1 of the CAPE-OPEN Thermodynamic and Physical Properties interface specification first released in 2001, bringing to it not only a better design than in version 1.0, but also an improved readability.
Michael participated in several of the early CAPE-OPEN Annual Meetings, especially within interoperability sessions where software vendors tested scenarios on each other’s machines. These sessions sometimes led to immediate changes in CAPE-OPEN implementation. On behalf of AspenTech, Michael also provided support to other parties implementing CAPE-OPEN interfaces as part of the first Consultancy Services scheme established and sponsored by CO-LaN.
From May 2006, after leaving AspenTech for AVEVA, Michael served as a part-time consultant to CO-LaN, overseeing the CAPE-OPEN Logging and Testing Tool (COLTT) and the CAPE-OPEN Type Libraries / Primary Interop Assemblies. Michael devised the first version of COLTT and, subsequently, took over its maintenance and development from SHMA. COLTT remains a major tool for analysing the interoperability of CAPE-OPEN implementations and provides valuable insights for the software vendors.
Michael also created and maintained the build process for the CAPE-OPEN TLBs/PIAs using standardized tools. This build process was developed to ensure the TLBs/PIAs were properly used in developing and distributing software implementing CAPE-OPEN.
Michael HALLORAN is now retired from his position at AVEVA. Michael remains an Individual Associate Member of CO-LaN and is ready to provide occasional advice to CO-LaN based on his vast experience of software development and CAPE-OPEN.
Michael is a major part of the CAPE-OPEN story. His insight and experience, his vast knowledge of software development and his powers of analysis, have served CO-LaN well for approximately 20 years and his contributions in support of CO-LaN activities will be sorely missed.