Using traceability links to identifying potentially erroneous artifacts during regulatory reviews

Safety critical systems emphasize the high quality of both hardware and software of a product since the safety of the product to the public tops all the other considerations. In these domains, regulatory agencies are entitled to conduct reviews on the entire range of artifacts produced from system design to system performance/maintenance. Regulatory review is comprised of the pre-market review and the post-market review. Each aspect of the regulatory review is time-consuming and laborious. In this paper we target situations when errors are identified in the reviewed software, either during pre- or post-market review. We propose an automated mechanism, which utilizes traceability information to identify lists of related software artifacts that are similar to those involved in the reported errors. With the tool recommendations, regulators can quickly investigate these suspicious locations and avoid the occurrence of future hazardous events.