Model-based techniques for intelligent integration and testing in industry

The effort required for integration and testing of high-tech multi-disciplinary systems is increasing with each new or upgraded system that is developed. To counter this trend of increasing integration and test lead time and costs, we propose a model-based integration and testing (MBI&T) method, where formal and executable models of the system components are used to replace the component realizations for early integration and system testing. In this paper, we describe how the integration and testing process currently used in industry can be made more intelligent by applying model-based techniques from the MBI&T method. We also show how to analyze the necessary trade-off between the investments needed for model development and the potential effort reduction, using a systematic and automatic integration sequencing method