Model-Based Specification and Testing for Rapid Software Transition

Software development organizations are faced with developing and verifying required system software capability, functionality, performance, reliability, and safety, while at the same time meeting tight budget and schedule constraints. Due to software complexity, many programs experience mission critical failures and incur schedule delays and cost overruns. The Army and other organizations, therefore, seek processes, methods and tools that enable them to achieve reliability and safety requirements, while mitigating cost or schedule risk. MST is an approach that will provide organizations with this capability. Military systems, such as those managed and developed by the Army’s Fire Control organization, have reliability and safety goals that management must work toward while reducing cost and schedule risk. The MST team believes that to achieve the goal of reliable and safe software two items must be in place: 1. The system software specification must be complete, correct and consistent. 2. The system must be tested with sufficient thoroughness to demonstrate, with a high degree of confidence, that software reliability goals have been achieved. The model-based specification and testing methodology addresses both elements and will ensure correct, complete and consistent specification and test coverage are achieved. The MST approach provides an objective, quantitative measure of system software reliability.