IEEE WG 12 Software       Meeting 08

                        December 5 & 6, 2000

 

Draft Meeting Minutes

 

The eighth meeting of the working group was held on December 5th and 6th, 2000 at the Safetran offices in Rancho Cucamonga, CA.

 

Participants

 

A listing of participants is attached. Nine members attended the meeting. 

 

Agenda

 

The agenda was accepted as distributed.  Document: sw agenda 08.

 

Minutes

 

The committee approved the minutes from meetings six and seven.  Both sets of minutes will be posted on the website.

 

Next Meeting

 

The next working group meeting will be on February 27th and 28th. D. Edgecomb-Cope will confirm availability of the Safetran facility.

 

General Notes

 

T. McGean stated that there are seven published standards and the committee is working with APTA and transit research board to get these standards published to transit community. The eighth standard “Environmental Conditions for Transit Rail Car Electronic Equipment, should be approved in the near term by IEEE.  NJT is using the communications protocol standard (standard 1473) and the data elements standard (standard 1544) for their car procurement. The committee is very eager to observe the standards in action on this procurement and is looking for other transit agencies to do the same.

 

B. MacArthur questioned how our initiatives relate to ITS initiatives.  T. McGean stated that the ITS initiatives basically cover surface transportation.  There are clear crossovers with rail, for example, in the highway crossings area. L. Denney suggested that the committee view ITS as an inter-modal control system that handles all facets of transportation within a corridor.

 

P. Jamieson stated that the next full committee meeting is in Miami on February 12th and 13th. P. Jamieson stated that the goal of meeting 8 is to discuss modification to the draft standard such that it can be presented to the full committee in February.  The completed draft standard must be submitted to the full committee for their review by Mid January 2001 in preparation for the February 2001 meeting. A revision to the draft standard would be required for the 2nd full committee meeting of 2001. The completed standard would be required by the end of this year.

 

Discussion on J-STD-016:

 

J-STD-016 will no longer be supported, therefore P1588 should not reference this standard. The IEEE direction is to use 12207. The working group discussed absorbing the text from J-STD-016 into standard P1588 as needed. T. McGean stated that we need to verify whether we can extract verbiage from the J-Std-016. To do so, we would need to contact the IEEE/EIA working group since the standard is copyrighted.  T. McGean suggested that it may be easier to attach J-STD-016 in an annex to our standard.  T. McGean will contact the EIA to determine what we are allowed to do with respect to this standard.

 

The working group has access to a number of standards in PDF format.  J. Corvin will inform the team on how to extract text from Adobe Acrobat for insertion into P1588.

 

P1588 Draft Review

 

The working group walked through the draft standard and modified language such that it can be presented to the full committee in February 2001. The draft standard was updated during the course of meeting 8 with track changes turned on.  A copy of the updated draft is attached.  Please note that this version will be further updated for the February 2001 working group meeting.

 

Additional Modifications to the Standard (not yet made during meeting 8) are as follows:

 

·        T. McGean stated that bullets are not allowed within the body of the standard.

 

·        Remove all text that states “in conformance with P1588”

 

·        Remove the sentences that state “… shall comply with standard…”. The standard compliance will be provided in table format and attached to the draft standard for the February 2001 full committee meeting.

 

·        W. MacArthur stated that P1588 should include a section that addresses consistency among software documents. The working group agreed.

 

·        Remove the documents that correspond to the gray boxes on the diagram (i.e. OCD, SSS).  The standard will no longer refer to these documents; it will only refer to the system level activities that are identified on the diagram.

 

·        Ensure that “shall” language is used within the body of the standard instead of “will”.

 

J. Corvin stated that we need to discuss how CASE tools will effect the format and content of the required deliverables.  We need to strike a balance by allowing the supplier to use his/her CASE tool, and still meet the intent of our standard. It was suggested that the intent to use the CASE tool documentation be defined within the SDP/SPMP or be addressed within the tailoring guidelines within P1588.

 

The diagram that will be inserted into P1588 shall be entitled “Software development activities and associated documentation”. It should not be referred to as a lifecycle diagram.

 

Modifications to the Software development activities and Associated Documentation diagram are as follows:

 

·        Remove the documents associated with the gray boxes on the diagram.  The standard will no longer refer to these documents

 

·        A note must be added on the diagram stating that the terminology used is drawn from 12207.

 

·        The diagram will be modified to change Software Item 2 to Software Item n.

 

L. Karr will update standard based on the review conducted during the meeting.

 

P. Jamieson to update diagram to use within the standard.

 

P. Jamieson to draft a document template to be used for all documents.

 

T. Simon will discuss with J. McDermott the use of P1588 on an NYCT software project.

 

T. McGean will check with IEEE on how to add IEEE/EIA 12207 to our coordination effort and whether a PAR change is needed.

 

D. Edgecomb-Cope and S. Morar will review whether there are additional requirements and/or standards to be followed for Safety Critical Systems.  For example, are there special V&V standards to be followed for safety critical systems? Refer to IEEE 1228 and 1483. This action item must be resolved before the February 2001 committee meeting.

 

B. MacArthur highly recommends that the working group purchase and read a copy of the following: "Software Engineering Standards, A User's Road Map" by James W. More. This book provides a good introduction to the 4-volume set of IEEE standards.  The book is available at “www.amazom.com”.  It also describes how the various standards relate to each other.  It was suggested to add this document to our list of references within our standard.

 

Day Two:

 

It was decided that if we are referencing sections within existing standards, then we should reference the date associated with the standard.

 

Document Reviews

 

S. Morar presented the template for development of the SDP.  S. Morar and his group need to evaluate whether we can use IEEE 1058 SPMP as a basis for the description of the SDP.

 

J. Corvin presented the SQAP. It was decided that IEEE 730.1 (the guide) provides additional clarification to IEEE 730 (the standard) and that our standard should not be solely dependent upon IEEE 730. J. Corvin stated that there are a number of differences between IEEE 730 and IEEE 730.1.  P. Jamieson will ask IEEE if an update to 730 is being worked on and if so, when it will be released, in hopes that the guide will match the standard more closely. P. Jamieson also stated that he will follow up on all standards that we are referencing from within our standard to determine if there are outstanding PARs.

 

Other Actions

 

P. Jamieson will generate an agenda for the February 2001 meeting, ASAP such that the transit authorities can get approval 60 days prior to this trip.

 

P. Jamieson to take the draft standard from meeting 8 and update the reference standard listing to incorporate all standards from the draft.

 

P. Jamieson to speak with T. Tougas on whether he can lead the effort on the four maintenance documents.

 

P. Jamieson to remind L. Martinez of action item 06.09.

 

T. Simon will provide a sample RTM from the NYCT 63rd Street project for use in the RTM section of P1588.

 

W. MacArthur identified the following major issues that the working group must address in the near term:

 

·        Legacy issues

·        Software development tools

·        COTS

·        RTM

 

Presentations on SDP and SQAP are included.

 


Software Development Plan

 

The following table describes the content of the Software Development Plan (SDP) that is adopted from J-STD-016 –1995 for the Railway Software Development Standards. The table identifies sections that are needed for the Railway Software Development Standards and is complemented by additional information for sub-clauses and by introducing new subsections that are required for the Railway Software Standards.

 

Each of section defined in the J-STD 16 SDP has been assigned an attribute that identifies the requirements of each section as follows:

 

Mandatory:                                This means that the section is mandatory in the SDP document.

 

Highly Recommended:            This means that the section is highly recommended and the rational for not including the section should be described Software Quality Plan or Project Management Plan.

 

Recommended:                         This means that the section is recommended.

 

 

Current

J-STD 16

J-STD 16

SDP Content List

Applicable to Railway Software Development Standards

Amendments to J-STD 16

For

Railway Software Development Standards

1.0

Scope

Mandatory

 

1.1

Identification

Mandatory

 

1.2

System Overview

Mandatory

Add following Subsections

1.2.1 Context Diagram

1.2.2 Functional Elements

1.3

Document Overview

Mandatory

 

1.4

Relationship to Other Plans

Mandatory

 

2.0

Reference Documents

Mandatory

Add following Subsections

2.1 Abbreviations

2.2 Definitions

3.0

Overview of Required Work

 

Mandatory

Add following Subsection

3.1 Software Artefacts

3.2 Deliverable Software Artefacts

4.0

Plans for Performing General Software Development Activities

Mandatory

Addition to sub-clause.

4.1

Software Development Process

Mandatory

Addition to sub-clause

4.2

General Plans for Software Development

Mandatory

 

4.2.1

Software Development Methods

Mandatory

Add following Subsections

4.2.1.1 New Software

4.2.1.2 Reusable Software

4.2.1.3 Prototype Software

4.2.2

Standards and Practice for Software Products

Mandatory

 

4.2.3

Traceability

Mandatory

Update to the sub-clause.

Add following Subsections

4.2.3.1 New Software

4.2.3.2 Reusable Software

4.2.4

Reusable Software Product

Mandatory

 

4.2.5

Handling of Critical Requirements

Mandatory

 

4.2.6

Computer Hardware Resource Utilisation

Recommended

 

4.2.7

Recording Rationale

Highly Recommended

 

4.2.8

Access for Acquire Review

Highly Recommended

 

5.0

Plans for Performing Detailed Software Development Activities

Mandatory

 

5.1

Project Planning and Oversight

Mandatory

 

5.1.1

Software Development Planning

Mandatory

 

5.1.2

Software Item Test Planning

Mandatory

This is Software Qualification Testing

5.1.3

System Test Planning

Highly Recommended

 

5.1.4

Software Installation Planning

Highly Recommended

 

5.1.5

Software Transition Planning

Highly Recommended

 

5.1.6

Following and Updating Plans

Mandatory

Update to the sub-clause.

5.2

Establishing a Software Development Environment

Mandatory

 

5.2.1

Software Engineering Environment

Mandatory

 

5.2.2

Software Test Environment

Mandatory

 

5.2.3

Software Development Library

Recommended

 

5.2.4

Software Development Files

Recommended

 

5.2.5

Non-Deliverable Software

Recommended

Update to the sub-clause

5.3

System Requirements Definition

Highly Recommended

 

5.3.1

Analysis of User Inputs

Highly Recommended

 

5.3.2

Operational Concept

Highly Recommended

 

5.3.3

System Requirements

Highly Recommended

 

5.4

System Design

Highly Recommended

 

5.4.1

System-Wide Design Decisions

Highly Recommended

 

5.4.2

System Architectural Design

Highly Recommended

 

5.5

Software Requirements Definition

Mandatory

Add the following Subsections

5.5.1 New Software

5.5.2 Reusable Software

5.6

Software Design

Mandatory

Add the following Subsections

5.6.1 New Software

5.6.2 Reusable Software

5.6.1

Software Item-Wide Design Decisions

Recommended

 

5.6.2

Software Item Architectural Design

Mandatory

 

5.6.3

Software Item Detailed Design

Mandatory

 

5.7

Software Implementation and Unit Testing

Mandatory

 

5.7.1

Software Implementation

Mandatory

 

5.7.2

Preparing for Unit Testing

Mandatory

 

5.7.3

Performing Unit Testing

Mandatory

 

5.7.4

Revision and Re-testing

Mandatory

 

5.7.5

Analysing and Recording Unit test Results

Mandatory

 

5.8

Unit Integration and Testing

Mandatory

 

5.8.1

Preparing for Unit Integration and Testing

Mandatory

 

5.8.2

Performing Unit Integration and Testing

Mandatory

 

5.8.3