21 Application of Quality Standards to Multiple Artifacts with a Universal Compliance Solution

Abstract

For standards compliance achievement in model-based engineering of embedded real-time systems, model analyzers and code checkers are constituted in early development phases to lower error rates and to eliminate time-consuming quality reviews. However, solutions available today only address a single modeling language and examinations are localized to specific development environments. Fulfilling more advanced traceability examinations required by procedural and technical quality standards, compliance checking has to be applicable across different modeling tools and development workflows. Furthermore it should cover correlation analyses that include model-to-model, model-to-file and model-to-database comparisons on multiple artifacts. This chapter introduces a novel compliance solution Assessment Studio that supports universal guideline and traceability checking with automated analyses in multi-domain modeling environments. MESA, our meta-modeling approach for guideline checking, was enhanced to support multiple meta-models with associated artifacts. Therefore, we use a XML-based transformation and proof mechanism by automatically executing rules written in LINQ, adding auto-correction and metrics measurement capabilities. Several case studies demonstrate the feasibility of this approach at Volkswagen.