An efficient method for developing requirement specifications for plant control software using a component-based software prototype

This paper proposes an efficient method to develop requirement specifications for Plant Control Software (PCSW) using software-component-based prototypes. Prior to this proposal, domain analyses were conducted on existing PCSWs, and their functions were classified into “similar functions” and “individual functions”. Then PCSW Software Components (PSC: PCSW Software Component, PSCs: PCSW Software Components) were developed to correspond to these functions. PSCs as parameter-style components were developed in order to satisfy the clients’ (we define clients as owners, managers and operators of plants) requirements. A support environment for developing requirement specifications was developed. The environment consists of the Prototype Development Tool (PDT), the Behavior Check Simulator (BCS) and the Requirement Specification Development Tool (RSDT). The method consists of four steps. In the first step, PDT is used to define the parameters to customize PSCs and to compose a PCSW prototype by setting these parameters to PSCs. In the second step, BCS is used to execute the composed PCSW prototype and check its behavior and relevancy against the clients’ expectations. In the third step, steps 1 and 2 are repeated until the behavior of the PCSW prototype satisfies the clients’ requirements. Finally, a requirement specification is developed from the PCSW prototype which fully reflects the clients’ requirements. In order to evaluate the proposed method, it has been applied in five development cases. A Requirement Coverage of 91%, a Requirement Revision Rate of 6%, a PSC Reuse Rate of 92% and a LOC Reuse Rate of 83% have been achieved. In addition, a reduction of 55% in the amount of time required to develop requirement specifications has been achieved. These results indicate that the proposed method has sufficient capability to develop an exhaustive and an adequate PCSW requirement specification. And the developed PSCs have sufficient functions and capability to compose PCSW prototypes, and the support environment is capable of shortening the time taken to develop requirement specifications.