Activity diagrams - a requirements distribution process for test equipment development

Requirements definition and allocation, i.e., the process of accurately capturing customer needs and distributing them to a development team, presents difficult hurdles for any program to traverse. This is especially true in test equipment design, because new product performance specifications are often fluid. A subtle change in a product´s operating characteristics can have a large impact on test equipment design, so it is essential to capture requirements that accurately reflect the product´s performance. In addition, this information must be transmitted to the test equipment hardware and software design team members clearly and quickly. Failure in this regard leads to costs overruns from rework, shortcomings in product test, and, very often, late delivery. With this article we show how engineers at Honeywell´s Defense & Space Electronic Systems - Clearwater Defense addressed this issue. Using UML tools and six sigma concepts, a process were created that would enable us to accurately and quickly capture product testing requirements and distribute them to team members. The article also demonstrate how our process allowed us to provide: i) A consistent view of the product´s testing by all departments. ii) Complete and concise testing requirements capture - including customer buy-in. iii) uniform requirement comprehension by all team members, avoiding multiple interpretations of the same specification. iv) Generation of derived requirements that affected both test equipment hardware and software. v) Allocation of customer supplied, and derived, requirements to the correct functional groups and how deviations affect schedule. vi) Avoidance of information duplication. vii) Baseline control and management.