KR20 From Process-Driven to Knowledge-Driven Requirements Engineering Using Domain Ontology

The present paper discusses possible ways of how ontologies could be used to drive requirements and the requirements engineering (RE) process itself in an attempt to overcome many of the problems that large engineering-focused companies encounter in trans-national and multi-disciplinary business contexts. The current use of ontologies in the context of systems engineering (SE) is explored with an emphasis on applications in the RE domain, followed by concurrent approaches to RE. Then, the scope of RE is discussed and how it should be widened horizontally and vertically in order to more fully benefit from the positive impact of this discipline in relation to cost, schedule and quality, leading to knowledge-driven RE rather than only process-driven RE. An example of a knowledge-driven approach to RE in the form of OntoREM – a comprehensive, ontology-driven RE methodology – is introduced, which is currently being developed at the University of the West of England in close cooperation with Airbus. Although this methodology is not yet mature enough and tested to be deployed operationally, some promising results can be expected from a series of applications of aspects of the methodology that are scheduled to be conducted in the context of the Integrated Wing Aerospace Technology Validation Programme, a GBP 34 million, multidisciplinary UK research undertaking, in the first two quarters of 2008. © 2008 The Authors.