Sustainable Product Performance through Requirements-Based Engineering

Articles and Posts Dec 04, 2022 4 mins 5624 Views 0 Comments 2 Likes

A systems engineering expert explains why requirements-based engineering is the key component in achieving sustainability in product development. Hedley Apperly, VP/GM of Systems and Software Engineering at PTC, makes the case that long term product performance (aka sustainability) is no longer considered just a nice to have but a fundamental design criteria such as size, weight, and cost.

"The challenge is to close the loop so that we ensure all requirements are built into the process upfront and carried through the design and engineering process and verified by valid tests throughout the engineering lifecycle." - Hedley Apperly

In order to build sustainability into product development, the development lifecycle processes and its software design tools need to be able to support requirements-based engineering:

Ability to Enable Collaboration Across Discipliens

"The critical capability, not just for software but also for the whole product, is the environment for defining the requirements of the product. Historically, or in other settings, this is conducted by email, word documents or spreadsheets. Using a database-centric, multiuser environment, you can define the requirements for all the stakeholders, track them, and make sure you have not missed any." - Hedley Apperly

Adopt Requirements-Based Testing Tools and Processes

"The connection between requirements, design and testing is essential. When defining a need for a product, such as a car’s stopping distance, several parameters combine to enable this. The best time to create the test plans for the whole product is while you are defining those requirements because they lead straight into one another." - Hedley Apperly

Integration of Requirements Management with Product Development

"That means you will be able to link the requirements to the parts that satisfy the requirements... This could be the type of material, where it is being used, sourcing, right through to what size it needs to be, and what performance you require. There is direct linking within a shared database..." - Hedley Apperly

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