Combining the Box Structure Development Method and CSP for Software Development

AbstractIn this paper, we combine the Box Structure Development Method (BSDM) [H.D. Mills, R.C. Linger, and A.R. Hevner. Principles of Information Systems Analysis and Design. Academic Press, 1986, S.J. Prowell, C.J. Trammell, R.C. Linger, and J.H. Poore. Cleanroom Software Engineering - Technology and Process. Addison-Wesley, 1998] and CSP [C.A.R. Hoare. Communicating Sequential Processes. Prentice Hall, 1985, A.W. Roscoe. The Theory and Practice of Concurrency. Prentice Hall, 1998], integrating them into industrial software development processes. BSDM was developed with practical software projects in mind and provides a framework for developing formal design specifications that are fully traceable to the informal requirements. It integrates well into an industrial setting and forms an ideal bridge between the actual system being developed and the abstract models used for formal analysis. CSP complements BSDM by providing the mathematical framework for formal verification, together with its model checker FDR. In this paper, we present generic algorithms for translating specifications from BSDM into CSP, illustrate how they can be formally verified using FDR and summarise an industrial case-study