Deriving engineering software from requirements

With the advent of intelligent computer aided design systems, companies suc h as Boeing are embarking on an era in which core competitive engineering k nowledge and design rationale is being encoded in software systems. The pro mise of this technology is that this knowledge can be leveraged across many different designs, product families, and even different uses (e.g., genera tive process planning for manufacturing). The current state of the practice attempts to achieve this goal through the reuse of software components. A fundamental problem with this approach to knowledge sharing and reuse is th at what we are trying to reuse is software-the end artifact in a long and c omplicated process that goes from requirement specifications, through a pro cess of design, to implementations. Knowledge sharing and reuse can not eas ily and uniformly occur at the software level. So what can be done as an alternative? This paper describes a theory, metho dology, language, and tool for the semi-automatic development and maintenan ce of engineering software from requirement specifications. In essence, thi s paradigm for software development and maintenance is one that explicitly captures requirement specifications, designs, implementations, and the refi nement processes that lead from requirements all the way down to software. By recording this entire refinement history, we stand a better chance of le veraging knowledge for different uses.