Will it work? [Requirements engineering]

This paper describes experiences using requirements engineering (RE) to reduce the risk of large heterogeneous distributed systems not working in their intended environments. Industry is creating ever-larger systems by integrating increasingly complex smaller systems. As a result, systems integration is becoming a major, or even dominant, risk in the production of systems such as an aircraft, railway or telecommunications infrastructure. The authors we describe some practical techniques used for the RE of such integrated systems. They aim to provide assurance, before development, that the final integrated system will achieve its overall requirements. We illustrate the techniques with case studies drawn from their industrial application