This paper explores the formal roles of non-functional requirements’ (NFR) elicitation, definition, and verification in the early stages of an engineering design project. This is performed using a case study conducted at an automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) during the design and development of a rear bumper sub-system. The purpose of this exploration is to determine if NFRs should be formalized within requirements modeling scheme. This can capture conceptual design information to identify their impact on other requirements while conducting design changes. The modeling scheme in this paper consists of a sequence of following domains—requirements, functions, working principle, components, design parameters, test measures, and tests—that are mapped to each other using matrices. It is revealed through this case study that non-functional requirements drive much of the design decision-making process and constrain the manner in which the product functionality is realized. Hence, the inclusion of NFRs as a separate and distinct domain in the design process is critical to recognize their significance during design changes. Based on the observations made in the case study, the NFR domain is included in the requirements modeling scheme.

中文翻译：

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在概念设计中实现非功能性需求的形式化

本文探讨了非功能性需求 (NFR) 引出、定义和验证在工程设计项目的早期阶段的正式作用。这是使用在汽车原始设备制造商 (OEM) 设计和开发后保险杠子系统期间进行的案例研究来执行的。此探索的目的是确定 NFR 是否应在需求建模方案中形式化。这可以捕获概念设计信息，以便在进行设计更改时识别它们对其他需求的影响。本文中的建模方案由以下一系列域组成——需求、功能、工作原理、组件、设计参数、测试措施和测试——这些域使用矩阵相互映射。通过这个案例研究表明，非功能性需求驱动了大部分设计决策过程，并限制了实现产品功能的方式。因此，在设计过程中将 NFR 作为一个独立的不同领域包括在内对于认识到它们在设计更改期间的重要性至关重要。根据案例研究中的观察结果，NFR 域包含在需求建模方案中。