A keyphrase based traceability scheme

The surface ship command system (SSCS) for the Royal Navy Type 23 Frigate and the Auxiliary Oiler Replenisher (AOR) self-defending logistics vessels is being designed and produced by Dowty-SEMA Ltd. Three constituent companies act as sub-contractors to the consortium in producing parts of the system. The contractual interface between Dowty-SEMA and the sub-contractors at a technical level takes the form of specifications which define the requirements for the subsystems being designed. At an early stage in the system definition, it was decided within Dowty-SEMA that an automated system for tracing the very large number of system requirements from the MoD requirements down to the specifications was essential. Shortly afterwards, RRDS decided to design tools to extend this traceability scheme down from the specifications through the entire software development lifecycle. The paper discusses the purpose of a requirements traceability system, embedded machine readable traceability keyphrases, keyphrase syntax, the Dowty-SEMA traceability scheme, and the RRDS traceability scheme