Framework for a service-oriented measurement infrastructure

Magdeburg, Univ., Fak. für Informatik, Diss., 2009Martin Kun

DREQUS: an approach for the Discovery of REQuirements Using Scenarios

ABSTRACT: Requirements engineering is recognized as a complex cognitive problem-solving process that takes place in an unstructured and poorly-understood problem context. Requirements elicitation is the activity generally regarded as the most crucial step in the requirements engineering process. The term “elicitation” is preferred to “capture”, to avoid the suggestion that requirements are out there to be collected. Information gathered during requirements elicitation often has to be interpreted, analyzed, modeled, and validated before the requirements engineer can feel confident that a complete set of requirements of a system have been obtained. Requirements elicitation comprises the set of activities that enable discovering, understanding, and documenting the goals and motives for building a proposed software system. It also involves identifying the requirements that the resulting system must satisfy in to achieve these goals. The requirements to be elicited may range from modifications to well-understood problems and systems (i.e. software upgrades), to hazy understandings of new problems being automated, to relatively unconstrained requirements that are open to innovation (e.g. mass-market software). Requirements elicitation remains problematic; missing or mistaken requirements still delay projects and cause cost overruns. No firm definition has matured for requirements elicitation in comparison to other areas of requirements engineering. This research is aimed to improve the results of the requirements elicitation process directly impacting the quality of the software products derived from them

System engineering and evolution decision support, Final Progress Report (05/01/1998 - 09-30-2001)

The objective of our effort is to develop a scientific basis for system engineering automation and decision support. This objective addresses the long term goals of increasing the quality of service provided complex systems while reducing development risks, costs, and time. Our work focused on decision support for designing operations of complex modular systems that can include embedded software. Emphasis areas included engineering automation capabilities in the areas of design modifications, design records, reuse, and automatic generation of design representations such as real-time schedules and software.U.S. Army Research OfficeFunding number(s): DSAM 90387, DWAM 80013, DWAM 90215

A Prototype Method and Tool to Facilitate Knowledge Sharing in the New Product Development Process

New Product Development (NPD) plays a critical role in the success of manufacturing firms. Activities in the product development process are dependent on the exchange of knowledge among NPD project team members. Increasingly, many organisations consider effective knowledge sharing to be a source of competitive advantage. However, the sharing of knowledge is often inhibited in various ways. This doctoral research presents an exploratory case study conducted at a multinational physical goods manufacturer. This investigation uncovered three, empirically derived and theoretically informed, barriers to knowledge sharing. They have been articulated as the lack of an explicit definition of information about the knowledge used and generated in the product development process, and the absence of mechanisms to make this information accessible in a multilingual environment and to disseminate it to NPD project team members. Collectively, these barriers inhibit a shared understanding of product development process knowledge. Existing knowledge management methodologies have focused on the capture of knowledge, rather than providing information about the knowledge and have not explicitly addressed issues regarding knowledge sharing in a multilingual environment. This thesis reports a prototype method and tool to facilitate knowledge sharing that addresses all three knowledge sharing barriers. Initially the research set out to identify and classify new product development process knowledge and then sought to determine what information about specific knowledge items is required by project teams. Based on the exploratory case findings, an ontology has been developed that formally defines information about this knowledge and allows it to be captured in a knowledge acquisition tool, thereby creating a knowledge base. A mechanism is provided to permit language labels to be attached to concepts and relations in the ontology, making it accessible to speakers of different languages. A dissemination tool allows the ontology and knowledge base to be viewed via a Web browser client. Essentially, the ontology and mechanisms facilitate a knowledge sharing capability. Some initial validation was conducted to better understand implementation issues and future deployment of the prototype method and tool in practice