Model-Driven Consistency Checking of Behavioural Specifications

For the development of software intensive systems different types of behavioural specifications are used. Although such specifications should be consistent with respect to each other, this is not always the case in practice. Maintainability problems are the result. In this paper we propose a technique for assessing the consistency of two types behavioural specifications: scenarios and state machines. The technique is based on the generation of state machines from scenarios. We specify the required mapping using model transformations. The use of technologies related to the model driven architecture enables easy integration with widely adopted (UML) tools. We applied our technique to assess the consistency of the behavioural specifications for the embedded software of copiers developed by Oce. Finally, we evaluate the approach and discuss its generalisability and wider applicability