Using a Model-based approach to the embedded software development process contributed significantly in reducing the development time while also supporting a high quality level of the software code implementation. However, based on our experience with CNH Industrial application scenarios, involving multiple suppliers from vehicle ECU to the engine ECU, it only addressed the need of the implementation phase without any consistent influence in other software development life-cycle phases such as requirements and specification.
Mandatory functional safety requirements, new complex functionalities, and reducing time to delivery while maintaining high quality level of software are driving factors in our new software development projects. Ideally the adoption of international standards, as for example the ISO 12007, and the safety standards, as the ISO 26262, ISO 25119 and ISO 13849, should represent a consistent guide to develop software. In this approach, the adoption of them should satisfy both the development guidelines and recommendations while at the same time to meeting application scenario requirements. A new way of thinking of functional safety projects is based on the concept that the software is the evolution of semi-finished product, on which each actor, System Engineer and Software Engineer, introduces added value. Further the exchange between phases (roles) will allow for a more fluid, iterative exchange of work products avoiding a ridge formal structure.
Therefore, the model-based approach should be extended to other areas such as System Engineering, that today seems to be an island where the time is stopped. In other words, Model-Based is important, even mandatory, for the full application of the concept of executable specification. For the adoption of external automation tools each tool should have an internal sponsor who balances the timing and budget constraints of adoption against the eventual cost reduction. An appropriate customization timeline should be evaluated before their introduction in the current Sw development process.