Reuse of Requirements: An Approach with a Generic Requirements Pool

This paper deals with the implementation of a methodology which describes how to reuse given requirements in an industrial company. With an increasing rate of new products projects and an increased number of variants or product family members, the amount of requirements gets unmanageable. Therefore, there is a demand in the industry for an approach for how to get the raising amount of requirements manageable. We focused on a department in the automotive industry which is responsible for the stability of the electrical power system of a vehicle. We observed several challenges of handling the design process of a battery-electrical car. In order to deal with the challenges, we propose a generic requirements list out of which there can be derived specific product specification lists. We depict a process model which addresses the essential activities of the requirements engineering and management. We describe how this process was implemented in the observed department. The proposed approach reduces the time which is needed to achieve a validated specification list and enhances the correctness of the chosen specifications through known description of the planned concept.