A Case Study into the status of Requirements Management in the South African defence industry
Sunil Surju, Siebert J. Benade · INCOSE International Symposium · 2014
Abstract In the systems engineering domain, there are several processes that are necessary for success, one of them is requirements engineering. This is a study of the requirements management process, traceability tools and workforce in the defence environment. A review of the literature suggested that good requirements management is important for success in projects; tools can be an enabler and the workforce can negatively or positively influence the requirements process. The author is an employee of Armscor and works on capital acquisition programmes in a project management capacity. Prior investigations within Armscor, the acquisition and procurement agency for the Department of Defence (DOD), revealed that problems exists in managing requirements internal and externally. The objective of this research was to determine the extent of these problems specifically focussed on the requirements process, the supporting tools and the workforce influences. The research followed a multiple case study strategy. It was a qualitative study with semi‐structured interviews conducted with respondents from four organisations i.e. DOD, Armscor and two Defence Industry Organisations namely DIO1 and DIO2. The results revealed that the requirements processes on the higher organisational levels required improvements and the problems discussed in the literature review were similar; tools played an important role in facilitating good requirements management and creating traceability. The workforce issues contributed largely to poor requirements management.