Assistant tool

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9015011-B2
Application number	US-201113173918-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 30, 2011
Priority date	Jan 25, 2011
Publication date	Apr 21, 2015
Grant date	Apr 21, 2015

Abstract

A design assistant tool may automatically generate a functional design diagram representative of a system based on a processed requirements specification including a plurality of processed requirement statements and use cases. The design assistant tool may apply heuristic rules to the processed requirement statements and/or the processed use cases to determine various components of a functional design diagram. The design assistant tool may generate a technical design module based on the functional design diagram. The design assistant tool may allow various aspects of the functional design diagram to be modified to generate the technical design diagram.

First claim

We claim:

1. A system for creating a system diagram model, the system comprising:
one or more processors or circuits;
a plurality of glossary data sets stored on a memory device;
a heuristics data set stored on the memory device, wherein the heuristics data set includes a plurality of heuristic rules including one or more requirement statement heuristic rules and one or more use case heuristic rules;
a use case cluster module executable by the one or more processors or circuits operable to identify system components by clustering processed use cases; and
a functional design creation module executable by the one or more processors or circuits;
wherein the one or more processors or circuits are operable to:
receive a processed requirements specification defining functionality of a system, wherein the processed requirements specification includes at least one processed requirement statement and at least one processed use case;
retrieve the plurality of glossary data sets, and the heuristics data set;
identify requirement statement classes and responsibilities based on the one or more requirement statement heuristic rules;
identify use case classes and responsibilities based on the one or more use case heuristic rules;
identify system components by the use case cluster module by clustering the at least one processed use case;
determine overlapping of requirement statement classes and use case classes and append responsibilities and attributes identified for a particular requirement statement class to a corresponding overlapped use case class;
generate a plurality of functional design diagram components based on the at least one processed requirement statement, the at least one processed use case, at least one system component identified by the use case cluster module, at least one of the plurality of glossary data sets, and the plurality of heuristic rules, wherein the plurality of functional design components includes at least one entity included in the system and at least one relationship associated with the at least one entity;
generate a functional design diagram based on the functional design diagram components, wherein the functional design diagram is representative of the system, and wherein the functional design diagram includes at least one diagram element representative of the at least one entity and a relationship indicator representative of the at least one relationship; and
transmit the functional design diagram to at least one display.

2. The system for creating a system diagram model of claim 1 , wherein the functional design creation module comprises a requirement statement heuristics module executable by the one or more processors or circuits to:
apply a set of the requirement statement heuristic rules and at least one of the plurality of glossary data sets to the at least one processed requirement statement; and
identify at least one candidate class and at least one relationship in the at least one processed requirement statement to include in the functional design diagram.

3. The system for creating a system diagram model of claim 2 , wherein the requirement statement heuristics module is further executable to identify at least one attribute of the at least one processed requirement statement in response to application of the plurality of heuristic rules.

4. The system for creating a system diagram model of claim 2 , wherein the functional design creation module comprises a use case heuristics module executable by the one or more processors or circuits to:
assign at least one processing class to each system component identified by the use case cluster module, based on the one or more use case heuristic rules;
apply a set of the one or more use case heuristic rules and at least one of the plurality of glossary data sets to the at least one processed use case to:
identify at least one other candidate class in the at least one processed use case and assign to the at least one other candidate class at least one responsibility indicated by the at least one processed use case to include in the functional design diagram; or
in instances when the at least one processed use case belongs to a particular cluster, identify a processing class indicated by the at least one processed use case, wherein the identified processing class is assigned to a system component that corresponds to the particular cluster, and assign a responsibility indicated by the at least one processed use case to the identified processing class to include in the functional design diagram.

5. The system for creating a system diagram model of claim 4 , wherein the use case heuristics module is further executable to identify at least one attribute of the at least one processed use case based on application of the plurality of heuristic rules.

6. The system for creating a system diagram model of claim 4 , wherein the at least one processed use case comprises a plurality of processed use cases, and wherein the use case cluster module is configured to cluster terms present in the plurality of processed use cases based on similarity of the terms.

7. The system for creating a system diagram model of claim 4 , wherein the functional design creation module comprises an analysis class component assignment module configured to assign the at least one candidate class and the at least one other candidate class to respective components included within the plurality of functional design diagram components.

8. The system for creating a system diagram model of claim 7 , wherein the functional design creation module comprises a design distribution module configured to distribute the respective functional design diagram components within the functional design diagram.

9. The system for creating a system diagram model of claim 8 , wherein the distributed respective functional design diagram components are entities within the functional design diagram.

10. The system of claim 1 further comprising a technical design module executable by the one or more processors or circuits to:
receive at least one input indicative of a diagram modification;
modify the functional design diagram in response to receipt of the diagram modification to generate a technical design diagram;
generate the technical design diagram; and
transmit the technical design diagram to the at least one display.

11. The system for creating a system diagram model of claim 1 , wherein the clustering of processed use cases creates one or more use case clusters that are made available via a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows a user to modify the one or more use case clusters of processed use cases.

12. A computer-implemented method of generating a diagram representing a system on a display, the method comprising:
receiving, by a processor, a processed requirements specification describing behavior of a system, wherein the processed requirements specification includes a plurality of processed requirement statements and a plurality of processed use cases;
retrieving, by the processor, a plurality of glossary data sets, and a heuristics data set, from a memory device, wherein the heuristics data set includes one or more requirement statement heuristic rules and one or more use case heuristic rules;
identifying requirement statement classes and responsibilities based on the one or more requirement statement heuristic rules;
identifying use case classes and responsibilities based on the one or more use case heuristic rules;
executing, by the processor, a use case cluster module and identifying system components by clustering the plurality of processed use cases by the use case cluster module;
determining overlapping of requiremen

Assignees

• Sarkar Santonu
• Sharma Vibhu S
• Argawal Rajiv
• Verma Kunal
• Kass Alex
• Accenture Global Services Ltd

Inventors

• Sarkar Santonu
• Sharma Vibhu S
• Argawal Rajiv
• Verma Kunal
• Kass Alex

Classifications

• G06Q10/00 Primary

  Administration; Management · CPC title

• G06F8/10

  Requirements analysis; Specification techniques · CPC title