Systems and methods for analyzing requirements

• US 8,650,186 B2
• Filed: 07/30/2010
• Issued: 02/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Boeing, Geoffrey, Shannon, Debra L., Beck, Andrew E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hosseini, Reza
• Application Number:
  US12/846,895
• Publication Number:
  US 20120030198A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,292 Days
• Field of Search: 707/706, 707/708, 707/711, 707/723, 707/731, 707737-739, 707/771, 707999001-99901, 707/999.101, 707/999.107, 7079992-999206
• US Class Current: 707/723
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/3338 Query expansion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/374 Thesaurus
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders

Abstract

The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for improving the management of requirements in systems and systems of systems. Multiple requirements databases may be interfaced, and language processing tools may be used to identify requirements having related content. The relevancy of requirements may be based on the semantic distance between terms in the network, their semantic relations, the number of related terms in the requirements, etc. A user may be presented with a navigable cross-section of requirements data relevant to search terms. Thus, added visibility and ease of access is provided for systems and systems of systems.

Claims

1. A system comprising at least one computer processor for analyzing requirements data, comprising:

a requirements database storing partially-structured data related to a subject matter domain; and

an analytic tool, comprising;

a user interface configured to receive a query from a user; and

an analyzer configured to;

parse the query into a plurality of search terms;

identify a first requirement from the requirements database based on a degree of relatedness between the plurality of search terms and the textual content of the first requirement;

identify a plurality of soft links between the first requirement and a plurality of related requirements, wherein each of the plurality of soft links represents a relatedness score between the first requirement and a related requirement from the plurality of related requirements, and each of the relatedness scores exceeds a threshold;

rank the plurality of related requirements based on their relatedness scores; and

provide the highest ranked requirement to the user.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the analyzer is configured to provide a plurality of requirements to the user in an order based on their relatedness scores.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a semantic network comprising a database linking partially-structured data related to the subject matter domain to related requirements data.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the partially-structured data comprises requirements related to the subject matter domain.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of soft links are determined by a subject matter expert or technician.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the ranked requirements are presented to the user via the user interface in order of their rank.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the analyzer locates a mandatory requirement in the requirements database related to the first requirement based on a mandatory link between the mandatory requirement and the first requirement.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the analyzer provides the mandatory requirement to the user.

24. The system of claim 1, wherein identifying the highest ranked requirement from the plurality of related requirements further comprises accessing a term cluster, wherein the terms in the term cluster are associated with parts in the product, and the terms in the term cluster are related to each other based on the physical proximities of the parts in the product.

25. The system of claim 1, wherein identifying the highest ranked requirement from the plurality of related requirements further comprises accessing a term cluster, wherein the terms in the term cluster are associated with parts in the product, and the terms in the term cluster are related to each other based on their likelihood of needing replacement or adjustment.

26. The system of claim 1, wherein identifying the highest ranked requirement from the plurality of related requirements further comprises accessing a term cluster, wherein the terms in the term cluster comprise linked pairs of synonyms.

9. A computer-implemented method for analyzing requirements data, comprising:

receiving a search query comprising search terms;

identifying a first requirement based on a degree of relatedness between the search terms and the textual content of the first requirement;

identifying a plurality of soft links between the first requirement and a plurality of related requirements, wherein each of the plurality of soft links represents a relatedness score between the first requirement and a related requirement from the plurality of related requirements, and each of the relatedness scores exceeds a threshold;

ranking the plurality of related requirements based on their relatedness scores; and

providing the highest ranked requirement to a user via a computer device.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the computer device comprises a search interface configured to receive the search query, connect to a requirements database and provide requirements to the user.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, further comprising:

presenting a plurality of requirements from the plurality of related requirements to the user via the computer device in accordance with their rankings.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, further comprising identifying a mandatory requirement related to the first requirement based on a mandatory link between the mandatory requirement and the first requirement.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, further comprising adding a related term to the search query that is determined by a subject matter expert or technician to be related to a search term.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the first requirement comprises a term that is a synonym of a term in the highest ranked requirement.

15. A computer-implemented method for analyzing requirements data, comprising:

receiving a search query comprising a first product requirement;

comparing, using a computer processor, the textual content of the first product requirement to a requirements database;

identifying, using the computer processor, a second product requirement in the requirements database, wherein the second product requirement has at least one term in common with the textual content of the first product requirement;

identifying, using the computer processor, a plurality of soft links between the second product requirement and a plurality of linked product requirements wherein the plurality of linked product requirements do not include the at least one term in common with the textual content of the first product requirement, and wherein the plurality of soft links represent a relatedness score between the second product requirement and a plurality of related requirements from the plurality of linked product requirements, and each of the relatedness scores exceeds a threshold;

ranking the plurality of related requirements based on their relatedness scores;

and providing the highest ranked product requirement to a user via a computer device.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein the plurality of soft links are determined by a subject matter expert or technician.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein identifying a second product requirement in the requirements database comprises identifying a product requirement in the requirements database that has at least a number of terms in common with the textual content of the first product requirement that exceeds a threshold.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein the relatedness scores are associated with strengths of a relationship between the second product requirement and the third product requirement.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 15, wherein the plurality of soft links are stored in a semantic network database.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 19, wherein the semantic network database is stored in a requirements database.

21. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a plurality of code segments, comprising:

a code segment for receiving a search query comprising search terms;

a code segment for identifying a first requirement from a requirements database based on a degree of relatedness between the search terms and the textual content of the first requirement;

a code segment for identifying a plurality of soft links between the first requirement and a plurality of related requirements, wherein each of the plurality of soft links represents a relatedness score between the first requirement and a related requirement from the plurality of related requirements, and each of the relatedness scores exceeds a threshold;

a code segment for ranking the plurality of related requirements based on their relatedness scores; and

a code segment for providing the highest ranked requirement to a user via a computer device.

22. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, further comprising:

a code segment for providing a plurality of ranked requirements to the user in accordance with their rankings.

23. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 21, further comprising:

a code segment for locating a mandatory requirement in the requirements database related to the first requirement based on a mandatory link between the mandatory requirement and the first requirement.