Requirements Management Using SLATE

After 10 years of automating the electrical design process at Texas Instruments, we could design and build a printed wiring board in 30 days, a 6x cycle time improvement. However, each design was still being built 5.75 times. Further analysis disclosed that the problem was the lack of requirements analysis and poorly written (or not written) specifications. Recent systems engineering surveys found that the management and documentation of requirements comprises over 75% of the tasks performed by systems engineering. These findings led to the development of a System Level Automation Tool for Engineers (SLATE) to improve the productivity of systems engineers. SLATE is a multi‐user, multi‐dimensional, concurrent engineering design tool for managing system design from product definition through design, development, manufacturing, deployment, maintenance, and the disposal of a product. This paper focuses on the approach taken to implement Requirements Management in SLATE.