Key Points

• Overview describing the basic notions of model-based development and how model analysis and test generation can significantly reduce time and effort
• Summarizes some of the benefits obtained by some members that have used the Test Automation Framework. One member project achieved 2 orders of magnitude greater test coverage (higher quality and reliability). With five+ experiments performed, they indicated that the modeling of such requirements could be done in 50% of the time (reducing cycle time).
• Explains how using the Test Automation Framework changes the lifecycle processes; provides a perspective on how the process changes the approach from traditional testing to continuous model-based V&V.

Presentation Abstract

The following outline provides a high-level summary of the "overview" describing applications of the Test Automation Framework (TAF). The briefing starts with an overview describing the basic notions of model-based development and how model analysis and test generation can significantly reduce time and effort. It also summarizes some of the benefits obtained by some members that have used the TAF. One member project achieved 2 orders of magnitude greater test coverage (higher quality and reliability). With five+ experiments performed, they indicated that the modeling of such requirements could be done in 50% of the time of existing (traditional) testing process (reducing cycle time). They were able to unifying an adhoc process of test script development from incomplete textual requirements, some of which were in the heads of the testers, and eliminated the need for several internally maintained tools.

Through deployment of the TAF we have gained insight into how models will become important mechanism for capturing the domain-specific intellectual property of a business unit. We explain how using the TAF changes the lifecycle processes from a traditional testing effort to one based on a continuous model-based V&V approach.

About the Author

Dr. Blackburn is President of T-VEC Technologies, Inc. and co-inventor of the T-VEC system and serves as Chief Technologist at the Software Productivity Consortium. He has twenty years of software systems engineering experience in development, project leadership and applied research in object technology, requirement and design specification, formal methods, and formal verification. He is also involved in developing strategies for integrating knowledge management and e-business, and has also been involved in applied research and technology demonstrations in web-based knowledge engineering, domain engineering, and reverse engineering. He earned a BS in Mathematics from Arizona State, MS in Mathematics from Florida Atlantic University, and a Ph.D. in Information Technology from George Mason University.