Preserving System Safety Across the Boundary Between System Integrator and Software Contractor

Complex automotive systems are not developed entirely by one organization. OEMs purchase subsystems from integrators who, in turn, purchase hardware components from suppliers and contract for the development of software components. Safety is an emergent property of the system as a whole, making it difficult to preserve safety-related information across the organizational boundaries between OEMs, integrators, and contractors. We propose the intent specification, an improved specification format, and SpecTRM-RL (SpecTRM Requirements Language), a readable component requirements modeling language, to communicate requirements, design, and safety information across organizational boundaries in a form that promotes its effective use.