# Requirements Management

## Introduction

The development of large and complex systems presents many challenges to system engineers. To satisfy the needs of the users is one of the most critical. Because systems often evolve over the course of a development project it is difficult to keep track of the user's requirements and to meet them. Requirements Management is the answer to this challenge.

The satisfaction of customer needs or demands - herein referred to as customer requirements - is the key factor for the success of a product. Requirements may refer to technical capabilities, design characteristics and functional qualities, etc. If the correct requirements of a product are not known, the designed, built, and maintained product will not / hardly be correct and consequently will not fulfill the customer needs.

The basis for getting a product right to market - in time, with the right set of features, with the right quality, and at the appropriate costs - is defined in the early development phase; often before CAD design is even started. Getting the interpretation of the customer requirements and product specifications right the first time is also a key to further shorten development cycles. Since the development of a product is an evolutionary process with many iterations and feedback loops, requirements evolve over the entire product process.

Requirements Management lets you capture requirements in a structured way. The origin of a requirement, its priority, and its connection to other requirements becomes transparent for all involved stakeholders.

For a given requirement (e.g. "Correct Cutting") it is possible to define parameters (e.g. torsion). Such parameters can then be used for the specification of the product and to verify that the created product design meets the original requirement. To execute a verification, a test plan is created and all requirements are verified using the defined criteria.

Individual product structure elements can be linked to the requirements they are derived from, respectively, which they fulfill. Additional requirements may be identified, or existing ones refined, as the concept further evolves. With this ability, dependencies between requirements and the conceptual product structure are documented and can be tracked in downstream design activities.