Requirements definition and management in critical automation applications

The early design steps are important in developing industrial control systems. In critical applications associated with large economical values and human well-being they are even more important. In this paper, we claim that requirements definition and management are an undeveloped area within automation technology. Fortunately, lots of experiences, textbooks and standards exist in many other industrial domains, for example in software engineering. They could be used to define a structured requirements engineering approach for control engineers. This approach should be multidisciplinary, apply sound, standards-based modelling concepts and integrate seamlessly into the overall design process