Abstract

As the software component in complex systems increases, a well-defined system development life cycle becomes more critical to ensure that the system is delivered on time and within budget. A key issue when developing a software system is the need for a clear, unambiguous set of requirements. This includes that requirements do not interact, that is, requirements do not negatively influence each other. The lack of a proper requirements interaction detection phase in most system development life cycle models has resulted in several problems that have ranged from minor inconsistencies between requirements to real-life disasters, such as the unfortunate deaths that were traced to faults in the software of the Therac-25 system, the destruction of ARIANE-5, and the crash of the airplane A320 Warsaw.