Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPTResearch Project "ReqMech"
The international project "ReqMech" is carried out by the Fraunhofer IPT and the Fraunhofer FOKUS alongside with the Belgium research association Sirris and 23 industrial partners. Within "ReqMech", the consortium aims to develop a requirements engineering framework that enhances the development process of mechatronic products for SME (small and medium-sized enterprises).
European mechatronical SME need to enhance their product development process to maintain and strengthen their competitive position as motor of international export. The high complexity of mechatronical products requires an integrated development process, embedded in the different disciplines (mechanics, electronics, and software). Today a failing (or non-existing) requirements engineering approach introduces inconsistencies in the design, causes huge costs (due to extra verification and testing) and makes it difficult to deliver series products to the customer in a predictable and reliable way. As the customer expectations on product quality are as high for SME as for other companies, mechatronical SME need a pragmatic requirements engineering methodology to develop their products "first time right".
The ReqMech framework will allow an efficient management of requirements under integration of suitable product development methods. Therefore the project consortium aims to develop a methodology, supported by proper SME-friendly tooling, which enhances the product development process by the following aspects:
- Integration of analysis methods and legal requirements
- Supporting complexity and variability
- Allowing reuse of product development data in an easy way
This framework will allow the mechatronical companies (esp. SME) to:
- Perform current analysis methods (as risk analysis) in an integrated way
- Integrate requirements from directives and standards in the tooling, to ensure these requirements are up-to-date in an ever-changing regulatory environment
- Derive options and variants of mechatronic products in a more efficient and effective way
- Reuse subsystems and components more efficiently
- Start using system modeling language (SysML) over the different disciplines to avoid errors.
The application of the framework provides a significant economic potential in decrease of product development costs with 30% (including testing). The requirements engineering framework will allow a product development team to develop more and better products with a shorter time-to-market and that correspond to what clients asked for. Additional advantages on the field call rate, on the time-to-market, on the reuse of subsystems and components, and on the improvement of products (e.g. safety integration) are expected.
Project partners
- Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT
- Fraunhofer-Institut für Offene Kommunikationssysteme FOKUS
- Sirris – The Collective Center of the Belgian Technological Industry
Implementation partners
- AUCOS Elektronische Geräte GmbH
- AutoJet Technologies BVBA
- Brankamp GmbH
- BDG GmbH Montage-, Prüf- und Fertigungssysteme
- Cluster Mechatronik und Automation Bayern
- Deprez Construct NV
- Deutsche Mechatronics GmbH
- ELTEBA GmbH & Co. KG
- Europower Generators BVBA
- Handsaeme Machinery BVBA
- ITQ GmbH
- Kompetenznetzwerk Mechatronik BW e. V.
- LMS International NV
- NV Bekaert Engineering SA
- NV Michel Van de Wiele
- OWL Maschinenbau e.V.
- Phibo Industries BVBA
- Picanol NV
- Spicer Off-Highway Belgium NV
- Televic NV
- Unata BVBA
- Van Hoecke Automation NV
- Vaskon
Project administrator
AiF
Coordinated by
FQS (Germany only)
The IGF project no. 65EN of "Forschungsgemeinschaft Qualität e.V. (FQS), August-Schanz-Straße 21A, 60433 Frankfurt am Main" was supported by AiF in line with the "Programm zur Förderung der industriellen Gemeinschaftsforschung und -entwicklung (IGF)" from "Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie (BMWi), " based on a decision of the "Deutscher Bundestag".
Final Report
The final report of the IGF project no. 65EN can be obtained from "FQS Forschungsgemeinschaft Qualität e.V.", August-Schanz-Str. 21A, 60433 Frankfurt am Main.