It is not all good news though, the challenges faced internationally since late 2019 have been significant. Political, environmental, social, and financial issues affected the world, with businesses large and small taking the biggest hit. Having the ability to ride out these storms and survive business turmoil is a question of reducing vulnerability. Diversity in product offering and flexibility to embrace exporting into multiple markets allows a company to develop various revenue streams and minimize the effects of fluctuations in global and local markets and sectors. Not only does this help to remove vulnerability to a point, but it can also allow a more stable and secure revenue and therefore more predictable controls over profit and loss.

Exporting and interacting with multiple markets and sectors in parallel provides a competitive advantage over smaller or similar-sized competitors; it increases the reach and edge, as does a flexible attitude, both proactively and reactively; this is especially important when working across multiple time zones. This additional reach inherently creates a wider and deeper network and allows an opportunity to strengthen the business profile.

Being in a niche corner of a high-technology market has its challenges, but the diversity of prospects and ability to be seen by more potential customers reduces the risk factor of those challenges as market growth will follow.

Being able to command an export audience, and compete at the highest levels requires a strong and well-positioned product and an understanding of the target market and localized expectations and demands. This can be the primary differentiator between a company that embraces export and a company that shies away from the risks!

Exporting is not just good news for the business owner, it inherently creates a culture of creativity as profits increase productivity and innovation which leads to an increase in workforce and further competitiveness in the sector. A growing, motivated team creates and focuses on success and understands the difficulties and rewards presented in pursuing an export strategy.

Why Export?

The UK is a world leader in many areas, including the export of goods and services. In 2017 alone, UK exports totaled £820 billion, a small drop from 2016 (£832 billion), but still a large sum! When you look at it as a percentage of GDP (Gross Domestic Product), our global exports are even more impressive: as of 2017, Britain exported about 30% of its total output.

But since 2017, the UK and the world have faced geo-political turmoil and unpredictability, as well as a Global Pandemic and conflicts in Europe. Some could see this as the ideal time to “circle the wagons” and protect what we have, however for exporters, these are the hurdles we must overcome: go to market or risk total failure.

So, why export, and what are the advantages?

• Extending to a global scale
• Less reliance on a local or limited customer base
• Increased profits
• Risk mitigation
• Increased competitiveness
• Increased market share
• Creates a positive culture
• Government support

There are of course risks and overheads to be managed such as:

• Supply chain disruptions
• High up-front costs
• Export licenses and documentation
• Product adaptation
• Political disruptions
• Cultural hurdles
• Currency fluctuations
• Multi-currency payments

The benefits of growth, innovation, and its associated IPR and an increase in knowledge, capability, and profit often outweigh the negatives associated with export.

New markets, new opportunities

The world is becoming a more connected place. The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the rate of new technology implementation means there are now more devices and systems that can be connected to the web and therefore the outside world than ever before.

With every new device comes an opportunity for software developers to create innovative solutions. This increased demand for a combination of hardware and software, designed for a specific function, commonly known as Embedded Software has also resulted in an increasing number of products that have a safety-critical related impact on our lives. The term “safety-critical” gives additional meaning to these devices and systems. Some are critical to healthcare, some keep the lights on at home and in the office, others ensure you get to work safely, and some even help you travel from one floor of a building to another, they are all around us, all the time, they are the infrastructure of the modern world.

The plethora of devices and their impact on daily life has led to the design, development, testing, and manufacturing of the devices to become a global sector and as a result, software companies have had no choice but to reach out beyond their borders and explore international markets to remain competitive and relevant in the sector. In fact, according to analyst firm IDC: “New markets are emerging as existing ones become saturated…[and] today’s companies must expand into these new areas if they hope to keep up with their competitors”.

The growth in the embedded software market will continue and there will not be a slowdown anytime soon as the public and the companies that manufacture devices never-ending hunger for more products and easier ways to live, and in a safer manner continues to be the appetite. Risk management in the sector is underwritten by a suite of internationally recognized standards to help organizations demonstrate product and system compliance and therefore safety.

Standards can be used to demonstrate compliance with regulations; they can also be used to demonstrate best practices or to document what you have done to achieve compliance with laws and in maintaining the State of the Art. Adherence to and compliance with International Standards further supports an export capability and sends a message of confidence and reliability that can be instantly recognized, especially in a market where you are a newcomer or outsider. As true as mathematics is to science, standards are to safety-critical embedded software.

The relationship between exports, growth, new technologies and innovation, and standards compliance also gives access to significant opportunities via the improvement of processes which in turn creates a culture of continuous improvement.

Standards such as IEC 61508, IEC 62304, and ISO 26262 are established in safety-critical industries such as automotive and medical devices. They are becoming increasingly common in other sectors through the demand for safer products, and because the standards cover best practices for good engineering throughout the life cycle of a product or system.

The message is a clear one, knowledge of standards and the ability to deliver products that meet them, combined with the capability to export sends a message of strength, confidence and above all care, care that the products that reach consumers, no matter how complicated with benefit our lives, and not be a hindrance.

Innovation and Export are a power pairing!

Very few people love testing, but technology has come a long way since the days when tests needed to be written manually one by one. Requirements-based testing however, tends to act as a sticking point when teams start to investigate how they can increase their levels of test automation.

With AI development progressing rapidly it is likely that one day machines will be able to comprehend software requirements written in natural language and create and run the necessary requirements-based tests. Unfortunately, this technology is still in its infancy. However, it is definitely still possible to increase automation and reduce the work involved in requirements-based testing.

If Requirements based testing is a lot of work then why do it at all?

To develop quality software

The purpose of requirements-based tests is to ensure that the software does what it was intended to do and nothing else. Testing against high level requirements is vital to ensure that the software fulfils its purpose. Usually tests are traced to more detailed functional requirements which in turn are traced to higher level user and business requirements to demonstrate that the code has been implemented correctly.

To make sure requirements are well defined

Requirements based testing also helps to ensure that the software requirements themselves are comprehensive and have been defined to a suitable level of detail. It is worth making sure that requirements are well defined as this will avoid rework and will make customer or stakeholder acceptance testing much smoother.

To comply with functional safety standards

Functional software safety standards such as IEC 61508 (industrial) and ISO 26262 (automotive) specify that requirements-based testing should be done. Aerospace standard DO-178 C identifies requirements-based testing as the very effective way to find errors and goes so far as to state that all tests must be requirements-based!

Automatic Test Generation

When thinking about automating requirements-based testing a natural but erroneous conclusion is that tests need to be generated from requirements. However, there is an alternative approach that is much more feasible.

A test tool, such as the Cantata unit and integration testing framework which we will use as an example here, can be used to auto-generate comprehensive test procedures from the source code. If clearly labelled these test procedures can then be traced to the requirements. This method is particularly effective for unit testing and can substantially reduce the effort involved in achieving 100% requirements coverage.

Automated requirements traceability process using a requirements management tool and the Cantata unit and integration test tool for test generation and traceability.

Automatic unit test generation with Cantata uses a feature called Cantata AutoTest. This parses source code to determine all possible paths through the code and then creates complete unit test scripts as required to exercise the code according to a given structural code coverage metric:

• Function entry point code coverage
• Statement coverage
• Decision coverage
• Modified condition and decision coverage (MC/DC)

(For more information on choosing a code coverage metric see our free white paper on Which Code Coverage Metrics to Use)

When tracing the auto-generated tests to requirements it is necessary to consider whether each requirement is completely and correctly verified by the test cases assigned to it. This step needs critical thinking so is not possible to fully automate. However, automation can make this manual activity easier.

AutoTest cases are generated with English test descriptions to make it easy to understand the unique path through the code that each test case verifies.

In addition, test tools can make this process smoother by providing:

1. A dedicated interface with all test and requirement data available in one location.
2. An interface for easily establishing trace relationships between requirements and test cases.

In Cantata the Trace module provides both of these functions .

Drag and drop requirements traceability in the Cantata trace module

This process of matching auto-generated tests with descriptions to the appropriate requirements is significantly quicker and easier than splitting a requirement into low level composite parts and manually writing tests for them.

After initial auto-generated tests have all been traced to requirements, it is beneficial if the workflow has a mechanism for managing changes to requirements and code. Automated processes and tools can also be used to highlight requirements changes, as well as to identify and refactor tests that are impacted by code changes.

A detailed breakdown of this process is available in these white papers (although they are tailored to specific standards the theory is applicable for any industry):

• Automated Requirements-Based Testing for ISO 26262
• Automated Requirements-Based Testing for DO-178 C

Originally published at https://blog.qa-systems.com.

Can requirements-based software testing be automated? was originally published in Software Quality - QA Systems on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

QA Systems, the leading European provider of software quality solutions to safety critical markets, is pleased to announce further international expansion with the company’s first US office, in Boston, MA. The founding of QA Systems North America Inc. is part of a continuing global growth strategy.

Andreas Sczepansky, President of QA Systems North America Inc. commented “The expansion to North America follows growing demand for our products which will be integral to growing our tool distribution network and supporting our customers on a global scale.” He adds, “I’m pleased to welcome Frank Waldman and Neil Langmead who will be heading up our North American sales and technical operations respectively. They bring substantial experience in embedded software testing and its application within DevOps pipelines, which will be invaluable to our rapidly growing North American customer base.”

Frank Waldman, Sales Manager for QA Systems North America Inc. graduated from MIT and has co-founded several software companies including Spritz Technology Inc., Lattix Inc. and CognitionPoint Inc. From this, he acquired significant experience working with different software architectures and expertise on delivery of software systems in demanding regulatory environments. Frank added “We have an amazing opportunity here to build on QA Systems’ success in Europe. QA Systems testing solutions will enable North American organisations to accelerate their standards compliance. I am looking forward to helping customers to harness the power of automation to optimise the quality and reliability of their embedded systems.”

Neil Langmead will be contracted to QA Systems as Technical Director. He has over 20 years’ experience as an international speaker and consultant in embedded and safety critical systems development. Neil joins QA Systems from the Siemens Code Clinic, which he co-founded in 2015, where he established a Functional Safety Testing Center (for DO-178B/C, ISO 26262, IEC 61508 and IEC 62304), and the first Chinese Open Source Clearing Center.

Free software trials of QA Systems testing solutions are now available to companies in North American markets. To request a free trial please click here or contact sales.us@qa-systems.com.

About Cantata

Cantata is a unit and integration software testing tool, enabling developers to verify standard compliant or business critical C/C++ code on embedded target and host native platforms. Cantata is integrated with an extensive set of embedded development toolchains, from cross-compilers to requirements management and continuous integration tools. The Eclipse GUI, tight tool integrations, highly automated C/C++ test cases generation, all make Cantata easy to use.

Find out more about Cantata for automated unit and integration testing

Further Information Please contact:

Frank Waldman — QA Systems North America Inc.

352 Park Street, Suite 203W, North Reading, MA 01864 USA.

Tel: +1 (0)781 568 0871 Email: sales.us@qa-systems.com

Marketing, QA Systems Ltd.

Tel: 01225 321 888 Email: marketing@qa-systems.com

Originally published at www.qa-systems.com on November 19, 2018.