What Is the Purpose of Traceability in Systems Engineering Projects?

This article was originally published on 07/08/2019 and was updated on 06/04/2025

In 2023, nearly 35 million vehicles were recalled in the United States, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Although most issues were relatively minor, several cases involved critical failures that compromised user safety. These incidents are stark reminders of the growing complexity in product development and the need for stronger controls throughout the engineering lifecycle. 

One of the most effective ways to gain control is through traceability. For organizations operating in safety-critical sectors such as aerospace, automotive, defense, and healthcare, traceability is not simply a best practice; it’s a prerequisite for compliance, accountability, and ultimately, quality. 

But what exactly is the purpose of traceability? How does it operate in modern product development? And more importantly, how can your engineering team implement it in a way that’s both efficient and scalable? 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is traceability in product development?

2. Why Traceability Matters in Modern Engineering Environments?

3. Why Is Achieving Traceability Still a Challenge?

4. The Consequences of Poor Traceability 

5. How Traceability Varies by Development Approach

6. How to Implement Sustainable, End-to-End Traceability?

7. FAQ – Traceability in Practice

What is traceability in product development? 

In systems and software engineering contexts, traceability refers to the structured ability to track and link each artifact in a system's development, from initial requirements to final validation. These artifacts may include: 

• Business needs 
• Functional specifications 
• Architectural models 
• Test cases 
• Source code 
• ...and more! 

The core idea is to establish and maintain formal relationships between all these elements across the lifecycle. This capability allows teams to understand the origin of every decision, change, and component, making it possible to navigate complexity with confidence. 

In industries bound by stringent standards such as DO-178C (aerospace), ISO 26262 (automotive), or IEC 61508 (industrial safety), traceability is an obligation. These frameworks demand documented proof that each requirement has been implemented correctly, validated adequately, and modified with traceable evidence. 

Without such mechanisms in place, errors go unnoticed, decisions become opaque, and risk escalates, often with legal, financial, or human consequences. 

Why Traceability Matters in Modern Engineering Environments? 

Engineering teams today operate in a fast-moving, highly regulated landscape. Products are software-driven, development is frequently distributed, and requirements are more complex than ever. Traceability enables organizations to maintain control amid this complexity in several ways: 

→ Regulatory compliance and certification 

Standards bodies and auditors need evidence that every requirement has been implemented and tested appropriately. Traceability provides this audit trail. It offers a clear map showing which test cases validate which functions, and which lines of code fulfill which requirements. 

→ Change Management 

It plays a critical role in managing change and assessing risk. Every engineering project experiences change (sometimes minor tweaks, sometimes major architectural shifts). Without traceability, assessing the downstream impact of these changes is nearly impossible. With it, teams can instantly identify which parts of the system are affected, enabling smarter decision-making and minimizing rework. 

→ Quality and Collaboration 

Finally, traceability improves product quality and team collaboration. When all stakeholders have visibility into the development lifecycle, misunderstandings decrease, and alignment improves. Engineers can verify that requirements are fully covered by design and test teams. Project managers can ensure coverage and completeness. And quality assurance teams can track issues back to their root causes. 

Why Is Achieving Traceability Still a Challenge?

Despite its benefits, many organizations still struggle to implement traceability in a sustainable way. One of the most persistent barriers is the fragmentation of tools across the development stack. Teams often use different platforms for managing requirements, coding, testing, and issue tracking. For example, requirements may live in IBM DOORS Next, changes may be tracked in Jira, and test plans may be managed in Xray for Jira. 

While each tool may be powerful on its own, they rarely connect natively with one another. This disconnection makes it difficult to establish true relationships across artifacts that live in separate silos. Some tools also store information in proprietary formats that are difficult to access externally. Even when integrations exist, they are often clunky, expensive to maintain, or limited in scope. 

Another critical issue is the lack of ownership over traceability itself. Because it involves so many roles: 

• system engineers 
• software developers 
• Testers 
• quality managers, etc.

Traceability is often seen as everyone’s responsibility and therefore no one’s priority. Without clear process governance or designated traceability champions, trace links are created inconsistently or not at all. 

As a result, many projects defer traceability to the end of development. Teams then rush to manually compile trace links in spreadsheets or documents to satisfy compliance demands. This approach is not only time-consuming—requiring up to three months of effort per engineer*—but also undermines the main value of traceability: real-time visibility. 

*According to our estimations and the testimonials of our interlocutors in the field 

The Consequences of Poor Traceability 

The cost of ignoring traceability goes far beyond inefficient documentation. It can jeopardize entire programs. At a commercial level, companies without traceability may fail audits, lose the right to bid on projects, or face delays in market entry due to certification issues. In safety-critical industries, the risks are even more dire. When traceability fails, systems may behave in unpredictable ways, with consequences ranging from product recalls to fatal accidents. 

→ The typical Example of the Boeing 737 MAX crisis

A striking example is the Boeing 737 MAX crisis. After fatal crashes, it became evident that traceability between software requirements and code implementations was flawed. In a detailed analysis, writer James Somers noted that FAA regulations require each line of safety-critical code to be traceable back to a documented requirement, and vice versa. Failure to enforce these traceability links contributed to the software's dangerous behavior. 

In essence, traceability is not just about checking boxes; it’s about ensuring that the system does what it was intended to do and nothing it wasn't. 

How Traceability Varies by Development Approach

The role and implementation of traceability also depend on the development methodology used. In traditional V-model development, traceability is built into the structure: requirements lead to design, which leads to implementation, which leads to validation, all in a linear fashion. Here, traceability provides formal checkpoints and clear relationships between phases. 

In Agile environments, however, development is iterative, and change is continuous. Traceability must be more flexible, linking epics, user stories, tasks, and tests dynamically. It must also be lightweight enough not to slow down sprints, while still offering enough visibility to support compliance and quality assurance. 

This makes tool support even more essential. Agile teams need traceability solutions that integrate directly into their workflows. 

How to Implement Sustainable, End-to-End Traceability?

To be effective, traceability must be treated as a core engineering capability, not an afterthought. This means adopting tools and practices that promote trace link creation as a natural part of everyday work. The most efficient approach is to adopt solutions relying on Linked Data. It is a technical approach that allows structured data from different sources to be queried and connected. The open standard driving this interoperability is called OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration). OSLC integrations access tool artifacts by using linked data. OSLC enables different engineering tools to communicate with each other by exposing their data and relationships through standardized APIs. 

Solutions like OSLC Connect for Jira allow engineering teams to create links between Jira issues, DOORS Next requirements, Xray test cases, and PTC parts, all without moving data or changing platforms. These trace links are live, browsable, and auditable across the entire engineering stack. 

With SodiusWillert’s OSLC-based integrations, organizations can: 

• Eliminate traceability silos 
• Achieve full lifecycle visibility 
• Automate compliance readiness 

Implementing traceability this way doesn’t just satisfy regulations; it improves engineering productivity and builds a strong foundation for systems excellence.