The use of electronics in automobiles has increased over time. Today, the vehicle is a complex network of systems made by electronic control units, with different purpose. To manage this complex Software Systems Engineering task, Fiat Group Automobiles (FGA) formed a Software Factory Team within the Electronics Architecture Group. The team goal is to design, develop and test Software Component Module following AUTOSAR consortium guidelines. To manage all phases, SPICE standard level 2 is implemented.
The team is formed by software engineers, which design C-CODE and test engineers which develop test cases. There are two principal activities of testing: design, execute test case and analyze the results. If the results are negative, deviation must be reported and followed up.
All activities are Model Based Design centered: this allows to predict general behaviour of the system, accelerate design cycle, reuse of test cases and it permits greater flexibility. This tecnique also helps to guarantee a good interaction between software design and software integration, in order to find out errors and bugs due to the interaction between software components.