Specification Modules for Methodical System Development

: We show how an alternative approach to document-oriented specification can ease the system design process. By identifying the modeling concepts needed for a complete system specification in an underlying conceptual model a specification can be interpreted as one single well-formed information complex avoiding inconsistencies as found in document oriented approaches. Besides a more intuitive development and treatment of specifications, an immediate benefit of a design process based on a conceptual model is the possibility to define specification modules that can be used as building blocks to assemble complex specifications. 1 Introduction From a developers perspective a major benefit of tool-supported system development should be an efficient management of specifications and a modular approach to development and reuse. Such modularity can be best achieved if tools allow developers to deal with the actual modeling concepts provided by a method instead of artifacts such as docu..