Methods for service software design

The need to define an appropriate software support was recognised within the European RACE I programme, and a group of four projects have contributed to a programming infrastructure (PI). Within the PI the Specification and Programming Environment for Communications Systems (SPECS) project has a primary aim to specify a methodology to provide maximum automation and optimization of software engineering of IBC (integrated broadband communication) software from requirements and specification through design, implementation, test, execution, maintenance and adaptation. The project demonstrates how the objective can be achieved by methods using both formal techniques, informal descriptions and engineering judgement. The architecture and tools are outlined in this paper to present a review of SPECS. This paper gives more detail of PEGS methods for elaborating requirements (and existing designs) towards design oriented definitions