On structuring formal, semi-formal and informal data to support traceability in systems engineering environments

  • Authors:

  • Paul Mason;Ken Cosh;Pulyamon Vihakapirom

  • Affiliations:

  • Shinawatra University, Pathumthani, Thailand;Asian University of Science & Technology, Chon Buri, Thailand;Asian University of Science & Technology, Chon Buri, Thailand

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the thirteenth ACM international conference on Information and knowledge management
  • Year:
  • 2004

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The development of large, complex systems poses a number of challenges for systems engineers, not least of which is the ability to ensure user requirements have been satisfied. Effective requirements management - an amalgam of information capture, information storage and management, and information dissemination activities - is crucial in that respect. In this paper we concentrate on one of the core issues of information management in a requirements management context - namely traceability. Traceability is the common term for mechanisms to record and navigate relationships between artifacts produced by development processes. However, realising effective traceability in systems engineering environments is complicated by the fact that engineers use a range of notations to describe complex systems. These range from natural language (informal), to graphical notations such as Statecharts (semi-formal) to languages with a well defined (formal) semantics such as VDM-SL and SPARK Ada. Most have tool support, although a lack of well-defined approaches to integration leads to inconsistencies and limits traceability between their respective data sets (internal models). This paper demonstrates an approach based on meta-modelling that enables traceability links to be established and consistency maintained between tools.