Systems Engineering with the Requirements modeling Framework
Channel: Andrea Ross
Date: 2012-12-04

Eclipse is getting more and more popular in systems engineering, and already covers a number of key areas, including modeling, testing, code generation, project management, and more. But until recently, the area of requirements engineering was barely covered. That has changed with the creation of the Eclipse Requirements Modeling Framework.

In this talk, we present the Eclipse Requirements Modeling Framework (RMF) and its GUI, ProR. RMF supports a generic data model that is based on the emerging ReqIF standard. ReqIF is an OMG standard that was developed by the automotive industry to aid the exchange of requirements between manufacturers and suppliers. ProR is the first clean-room implementation of a ReqIF tool. We expect most industry tools to support ReqIF by the end of 2012, and some already do. Support for the project was pledged by Airbus, Thales, MKS and many others (see http://eclipse.org/rmf). As ProR is generic, it can be used with a wide range of development processes. But the real power stems from the ability to extend it with plug-ins to provide additional functionality.

Particularly powerful is the ability to integrate RMF with other Eclipse offerings, and we will give some real-world example on what's already done. Particularly interesting is traceability, both within requirements, but especially to other artifacts of the system description. This can support project management, testing or change management, to name just a few.

We will provide an outlook on plans for RMF in the near future. For instance, there is a lot of interest in the Topcased community to integrate ProR for better requirements engineering support. Academic work for integrating requirements with formal methods is underway.

This talk provides demos for the various aspects of RMF and addresses everybody who manages requirements. Besides requirements engineers, this includes product managers, project managers and software architects. As systems being developed are getting more and more complex, the importance of an effective development process and an integrated tool chain are becoming increasingly important. RMF makes an open contribution in an area that so far has been under-represented in the Eclipse ecosystem.