Using Graph Grammars for Modeling Wiring Harnesses – An Experience Report

The Fujaba project has created a light weight graph grammar approach allowing the use of graph grammar concepts in usual Java programs. Fujaba comes with visual editors for graph schemas / class diagrams, control structures / activity diagrams, and graph rewrite rules / extended object diagrams. Thereby the user may specify executable programs that are translated into complete Java programs without any need for further low level Java programming. In addition, Fujaba provides dedicated visual language support for scenario based testing. This is complemented with support for model versioning and distributed applications. Last but not least Fujaba provides model level debugging.

This paper is an experience report applying Fujaba techniques for requirements analysis and implementation in an industrial project in the automotive industry. The considered project has created a tool for the design of car electronic systems. This project involved an enormous amount of domain knowledge. The challenge was to involve the domain experts in the analysis, design, and implementation activities such that the transfer of domain knowledge is fostered. This paper reports how we used graph grammar based Fujaba techniques and languages to achieve domain expert involvement.