Ontologysupported quality assurance for component-based systems configuration

Systems development needs to reconcile views from many roles, such as domain experts and engineers. A particular challenge is the multitude of models for requirements and quality, which can get time consuming and error prone to trace, change, and verify. In this paper we introduce an ontology-supported component-based systems engineering approach for the production automation domain that describes explicitly stakeholder quality requirements and traces design decisions to generate new system and software versions that implement these requirements. The ontology approach is expected to allow continuous modeling and extracting model views for all roles involved to a) improve the quality assurance of system requirements; b) support more explicit feedback on the quality of intermediate models during systems development; and c) provide better auditing capabilities of the systems development process. Based on an industry case study, we describe the ontology concept of the system, the development process, and how software quality can be measured and improved. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.9 [Management]: Software configuration management, Software quality assuranc