ERMM: An Engineering Requirements Management Method

Automotive product development is a lengthy and complex process. There exists a large body of various requirements, standards, and regulations, which need to be followed by all engineering activities throughout the entire vehicle development process. The underlying relationships between these requirements are very complicated. Although most of engineering requirements can be found in various engineering databases, it is the lack of the underlying relationship between the requirements and their association with the design that makes it extremely difficult for even experienced engineers to follow the requirements in their day-to-day work. This paper introduces an engineering requirements management method that captures these interrelationships and associations using a matrix-based representation. A case study with a real automotive component is also presented.