An integrated system design environment: Concepts and a status report

In the construction of requirements specifications for a given problem, it is generally recommended that overspecification of the problem solution be avoided [1]. Such overspecification tends to distort the functionality required by suggesting implementation concepts at the outset. In order to avoid overspecification, and to provide a support environment to the specifier, a four-stage system design environment is proposed and has been partially implemented over a three-year period. The theoretical basis of this approach is explained in [2]. Our system-level specification language (DODAN) is developed in [3]. Based on this specification language, a prototype (DAA) [4, 5, 6] for supporting the requirements specification stage has been implemented. Our other protype (DARMS) addressing the module specification stage was developed in [7, 8]. In this paper, the current status of the project is described with an emphasis on the requirements specification stage.