Automotive Industry

The complexity of vehicle development has exploded in recent years, due to the huge growth in the use of electronics and software in cars. The automotive industry recognised that the complexity can be mastered above all by systems engineering based on finely tuned requirements engineering.

HOOD has made a significant contribution to the improvement of requirements engineering within this industry. With our in-depth experience of developing processes and requirements information-models for requirements management software tools, HOOD has been able to roll out customised development processes and tool environments.

HOOD has led the way in improving system and component development, for example, transitioning document-based customer and supplier specifications to a database-oriented storage of requirements.  Furthermore, the database supported exchange of requirements data between manufacturers and suppliers is based on HOOD’s  pioneering innovations. Together with the leading German automobile manufacturers and their suppliers, HOOD led the way in defining the “Requirements Interchange Format” (ReqIF), which is in the process of becoming an international standard of the Object Management Group (OMG).

ReqIf is already supported by leading requirements-management tools and is being used by in many manufacturer-supplier relationships.

Exchanging requirements data via ReqIF enables huge improvements in communications between manufacturer and supplier, from a focused selection of a supplier for a particular component, via the exchange of changes during the development, through to a fine-tuned schedule for system integration and testing.