Managing the deluge of data

The model-based development (MBD) process has been a key enabler of technical advancement in the transportation industry; however, the MBD process leads to the generation of large volumes of data artifacts and work products. To maintain efficiency while continuously improving the quality of products, it is necessary to be able to manage this data in an efficient manner.

The software development process known commonly as the V-Cycle for model-based design has served the transportation industry well for managing the complexity of systems. However, given the large scope of development, the process is reflected in organizational structures with large independent departments, in many cases spanning across the globe, performing specific activities within the V-Cycle. The risks in product development come from many different areas, and the ISO 26262 standard has identified traceability of requirements throughout development as one key methodology to reduce risk. However, in the model-based development (MBD) process, this task has been difficult. Given the large number of product versions, variants, and platforms, connecting this information to all the work products in the development process is a major challenge.

Requirements-based development and testing is the common approach taken in developing embedded software across the industries. These requirements are recorded in many forms, starting with simple documents to formal machine readable descriptions. These requirements then drive the development activities and are necessary to be tracked throughout the development process. A good requirements-tracing system serves many key elements of software implementation:

Provides methods to ensure all the requirements are met

Provides methods to ensure that there is no unintended functionality (one that cannot be traced to a requirement) in the final implementation

Provides methods to assess the impact of change in requirements on the development activity.