An effective requirements management process ensures functional safety, regulatory compliance, and a heightened user experience in the software found in high-end models of road vehicles. Siemens suspects software will account for 30% of vehicle components by 2030. Besides, vehicles, on average, already contained around 10 million software lines of code in 2010.
The requirements management process can ensure those millions of lines of code are efficient, safe, and compliant. Safety in increasing complexity vehicles is pivotal, and timeous delivery can meet customer demands. Let’s help you discover the key strategies for effective scope management in requirements management for the automotive industry.
What Is Automotive Product Lifecycle Requirements Management?
Requirements management is a systematic approach with incremental activity sets to enable the delivery of a complete vehicle to market, ensuring compliance, risk reduction, and compliance within the automotive components. The automotive quality process requires a distinct list of requirements.
Importance of Requirements Engineering and Requirements Management Tools
Managing requirements before designing systems for automotive industries results in reduced long-term costs, enhanced driver experiences, safety risk mitigation, and good requirements documentation. The benefits of requirements management for software development related to road vehicles include:
- Risk reduction for drivers and automotive companies
- Reduced time for software development and vehicle manufacturing
- Decreasing risks of software failure in the vehicles
- Improved vehicle software quality for a heightened user experience
- Compliance for vehicle manufacturers and car dealers
- Produce automotive components with road and driver safety in mind
- Enhanced functional safety that meets the ISO 26262 standards
Different Automotive Requirements for Requirements Documentation
What are safety requirements management types among others? The automotive quality process requires specific requirements management. Here’s a brief explanation of the typical requirements project managers manage in the automotive industry:
Automotive Requirements
Best-in-class practices for automotive requirements mean project managers must gather and document requirements to produce automotive components and the user interface. Automotive requirements management covers all the physical aspects of how the software interacts with the automotive parts. These are key characteristics of good software requirements for vehicles that managers must outline.
Business Requirements
Business requirements refer to the stakeholders investing in developing the software for automotive safety, components, and user-friendly driving experiences. Requirements management also defines the project scope, timelines, milestones, and deliverables with these requirements. What are deliverables in project management? Business requirements will outline the project scope and deliverables.
Electronic and Electrical Systems Requirements
A vehicle’s electrified systems means project managers must collect and analyse electronic systems requirements for the vehicle’s electronics. Managing requirements for electrified systems means you need to document all of the software necessary to ensure smooth functions in the electronics. You’ll need to define your project requirements for electric and electronic systems within the vehicle.
Functional Requirements
Functional requirements management covers everything from electronic and electrical systems, a failsafe response, the lane change control system, auto-park, or sophisticated automated driving functions. Functional types of requirements in vehicles define what the system must do in specific situations. Discover functional requirements vs. business requirements to know more.
Functional Safety Requirements
Functional safety and emissions requirements could include the SAE system level (reliance level of the driver), driver support, driver replacement, and the distance control system between cars. Emission-related requirements follow the average CO2 emissions allowed by local regions. These requirements differ from regular functional requirements and are necessary for the software development life cycle.
Non-Functional Requirements
Non-functional requirements management for vehicle software refers to how the system will respond to changes in the driving environment. For example, non-functional requirements will define how the vehicle’s software responds to a faulty sensor that could risk the driver’s safety. Discover what are functional and non-functional requirements to know how important these definitions are in vehicles.
Regulatory Requirements
Regulatory requirements must align with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26262 regulations related to safety, emissions, components, and software. The ISO 26262 standards for functional safety help to manage requirements and ensure the product lifecycle meets compliance. Read the ISO 26262 standards before managing requirements in the automotive industry.
Stakeholder Requirements
Stakeholder requirements describe any requirement related to consumers, users, drivers, business owners, and vehicle manufacturers. Stakeholders define everyone who has a stake in the production or use of the automotive product after the product lifecycle is complete. Engaging stakeholders in requirements gathering results in high-end models that meet user standards.
Technical Safety Critical Systems Requirements
Technical safety requirements relate to components controlled by software, including how the ABS brake system applies specific pressure to different wheels to stop the vehicle with greater safety. ABS systems continues to use software. Discover the best requirements analysis process and techniques to help you gather and define the safety attributes management system for technical safety requirements.
Automotive Requirements Attributes (Additional Required Activities)
Each requirement above also has attributes to define characteristics of the documented requirements. The requirements must have an ID, category, version number, discipline, safety attributes, feasibility data, and the planned release details. Safety attributes management requires these definitions.
Project managers define automotive requirements using these attributes as additional required activities and may refer to subject matter experts for guidance. Defining requirements with these characteristics makes for effective safety attributes management as a best-in-class practice.
Common Requirements Management Challenges for Automotives
Market changes, missing requirements, and a lack of change control measures or change management challenge project managers trying to manage the vehicle’s market-relevant requirements. Customer and ever-changing market demands are resolved once you implement change control management, which is easier with the best requirements management tools.
Best Requirements Management Tools for the Automotive Industry
Many requirements management tools exist, with many individuals relying on Jama software. However, Jama software doesn’t necessarily offer the best requirements management tools. Instead, the benefits of using Requiment include a guided process and demo videos for efficient management tools at hand.
The tools are ideal for managers unfamiliar with specific industries, and you’ll have task generation and output reports for easy-to-access and paperless tools. You could create wireframes for other management projects or update easily any change requests as per the ever-changing market demands.
Requiment lets you manage change control without hiccups. It’s one of our best tools to use for change management in automotive requirements. Book a demo or sign up for our free trial to discover the best tools on the market. Additionally, our pricing suits anyone managing requirements after the trial.
Requirements Management Best Practices for Automotives
A best-in-class practice follows suit after you follow automotive requirements best practices. Here are the best practices for product development and requirements management in vehicle manufacturing:
- Implement the requirements management process immediately
- Use strategic planning to identify every possible dependency
- Use Agile or iterative development cycles to support change control
- Ensure every requirement meets compliance and regulatory standards
- Safety in shared mobility is of the utmost importance
- Establish an additional traceability structure with your Requiment tools
- Implement effective requirements engineering and risk mitigation strategies
A Step-By-Step Automotive Requirements Management Process
Requirements management planning is about compiling requirements documents outlining every automotive component spend, enabling effective scope management, and meeting customer demands. You’ll find a brief explanation of each step required for a successful requirements management plan.
Step 1 – Elicit Requirements
Use eliciting requirements techniques to gather requirements from stakeholders, product owners, drivers, and manufacturers, especially any regarding functional safety, shared mobility, automated driving, and safety-critical systems. Speak to engineers and subject matter experts, too.
Understand on what system level the systems continue to provide functional safety by speaking to subject matter experts and automotive engineers to elicit the best requirements for your requirements management plan. Elicitation should also reveal the product lifecycle, including development.
Step 2 – Requirements Analysis
Use an efficient requirements analysis process and techniques to measure the feasibility and complete the attributes of each requirement as part of your requirements engineering process. Remember that functional safety and other requirements must be defined soon into attributes, one of which is feasibility.
Requirements analysis in vehicle manufacturing also requires managers to analyse the cost set of novel variations from the base specifications. The cost set should show variations of the concept model in automotive requirements engineering, decreasing risks related to overruns.
Step 3 – Define Requirements
Next, you’ll need to define the attributes and characteristics of functional safety, automotive, electronic components, and even a sophisticated automated driving system so that automotive engineers can produce what’s stipulated in the requirements documents.
Knowing how to define your project requirements in requirements engineering also ensures that catalogue prerequisites are met for manufacturers to choose potential suppliers for the appropriate component spend with novel variations, increasing exponentially the chance of timeous delivery.
Step 4 – Requirements Documentation
Many suppliers use AI tools for requirements document matching. It’s imperative to ensure you provide all base specification requirements documents necessary, even beyond the vehicles’ software. Effective requirements documentation includes a product requirements document for development and supplier catalogues.
Additionally, create a system verification and system acceptance plan once you define the product requirements with attributes and characteristics. The added automotive requirements document shows how the system will be tested to verify whether the acceptance criteria were met in the concept phase for rapid rate development.
Step 5 – Implement Traceability
Rapid rate development in iterative models requires you to monitor performance for change control increasing exponentially the chance of success in each development stage. An additional traceability structure allows you to monitor the performance and progress of product requirements development.
Implement an additional traceability structure with our Requiment tools to manage change requests and update the stakeholders involved. The importance of requirements traceability remains pivotal to driver experience, functional safety, and even supplier selection.
Step 6 – Risk Management
Risk management in requirements engineering is about proactively decreasing risks when you identify potential risks with test cases. Risk reduction results in happier clients and consumers. Use test cases to ensure the automotive requirements are user-friendly, provide safety, and meet standards.
Furthermore, implement test management to ensure developers, engineers, and manufacturers can continue work with minimal delays. You could also use an automated test management tool to monitor and implement your test requirements management plan. Book a demo to see how Requiment can help.
Step 7 – Effect Change Control
Inconsistent global legislation, changing market demands, and inflexible methodologies in requirements engineering and the development process can challenge change management. Avoid a death-by-change request when suppliers don’t have components to match the system in vehicles.
For example, safety and emissions requirements could change, and compiling requirements documents outlining change management strategies to adapt to inconsistent global legislation with change strategies could solve your problems before they begin. Adapt to and plan for change with Requiment.
Step 8 – Validation and Approval
The final step of requirements engineering and an efficient requirements management plan is to receive validation and approval for all software components within vehicles. The requirements management product lifecycle never ends because of change management.
However, managing requirements engineering requires you to get sign-off from experts, product owners, and manufacturers. The system and software acceptance plan summarises the acceptance criteria for fast sign-off. Centralising your requirements in one platform like Requiment certainly helps.
Summing Up Automotive Industry Requirements Management
Requirement engineering and management for vehicles is more complicated than regular management strategies. Apply all best practices, gather each requirement type necessary for the industry, and analyse or define them with the proper attributes necessary for these specialised requirements.
Start your requirements engineering and management process with the right tools to ensure all procedures required are documented. Sign up for our free trial to use Requiment for your management process today. Alternatively, book a demo to see our process in action.
Automotive Industry Requirements Management FAQs
What Should Be Included in Requirements Management Planning?
Discover how to create a successful requirements management plan to ensure a seamless process. In this case, you’d follow these steps to gather requirements as a business analyst to ensure a successful process for vehicle system development:
- Define your project scope
- Identify all stakeholders
- Elicit all vehicle software-related requirements
- Define the automotive requirements attributes
- Design your requirements traceability matrix
- Delegate roles and responsibilities
- Manage conflicting requirements
- Define how requirements are prioritised in the process
How to Write Requirements for an Automotive Company?
Know how to write a software requirements document (SRD) while including all the requirements related to automotive parts, and compliance standards. The automotive quality process requires managers to outline all procedures required to make high-end vehicles with compliant systems.
Is Requirements Management Planning Difficult in Automotive Industries?
Yes, defining your requirements management plan for the motor vehicle industry is more challenging because of strict regulatory standards and safety measures related to the system included in vehicles. Use effective requirements analysis techniques to further refine your requirements management plan.