Requirements engineering-laying the foundations for successful design

摘要

The aim of this paper is to review Requirements Engineering techniques, which originate from the Systems Engineering domain, and describe their adoption within mechanical engineering design projects. The motivation for using these techniques is to provide improved recognition of customer and end user needs at the outset of a project and then to manage and control the use of requirements information throughout the project lifecycle. The techniques offer benefits particularly to projects with high levels of complexity and concurrency and can assist in supply chain management. The paper outlines the Requirements Engineering process, from the front-end requirement development activities through to the management and change control of requirements. A key benefit of these techniques is to establish traceability from the original customer need and system specification through the project lifecycle to the completed deliverables and acceptance criteria. This provides a method for rigorously assessing the impact of change to a project's requirements. The techniques have been successfully implemented in the design process for projects in the aerospace, defence and general equipment sectors.