Requirements management in automotive: an empirical study on process improvement areas

In the automotive domain the development of software-intensive components is mainly demanded to specialized suppliers that are required by car manufacturers a.k.a. OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) to measure and, eventually, improve their development process by applying process models such as Automotive SPICE. Automotive SPICE is therefore a widely-Applied reference framework providing a set of requested practices in the development life-cycle, including requirements management. Requirements management is a key issue in automotive because the high volatility of requirements during projects and the need of interactions among different stakeholders. This paper aims at contributing in identifying what are the most frequent weaknesses in requirements management in automotive. The authors present the results of an empirical study aimed at characterizing and analyzing recurrent requirement management weaknesses in automotive. The authors, as Automotive SPICE assessors, have evaluated requirement management practices on the basis of the evidences gathered from real industrial development projects during a significant number of assessments performed at several organizations world-wide. This paper is intended to derive a picture of the state-of-The-practice of requirements management in automotive focusing on the development of software-intensive automotive components. The purpose is to provide researchers and practitioners with a reference for improvement initiatives aimed at solving those weaknesses.