System and software testing in automotive: an empirical study on process improvement areas

-- In the automotive domain, the development of software-intensive components is mainly demanded to particular suppliers that are required by car manufacturers a.k.a. OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) to measure and, eventually, improve their development process by applying process models such as Automotive SPICE. Automotive SPICE is a widelyapplied reference framework providing a set of requested practices in the development life-cycle, including system and software testing. This paper aims at contributing in identifying what are the most frequent weaknesses in system and software testing in automotive. The authors present the results of an empirical study aimedat characterizing and analyzing recurrent system and software testing weaknesses in automotive. The authors, as Automotive SPICE assessors, have evaluated requirement management practices on the basis of the evidences gathered from real industrial development projects during a significant number of assessments performed at several organizations world-wide.This paper is intended to derive a picture of the state-of-thepractice of system and software testing in automotive focusing on the development of software-intensive automotive components. The purpose is to provide researchers and practitioners with a reference for improvement initiatives aimed at solving those weaknesses.