Software verification and validation methods with advanced design patterns and formal code analysis

This thesis focuses on the description and the improvement of the host company software life cycle, with a focus on the Verification and Validation phase. The host company is an international group, the world leader in the supply of advanced technologies for the ceramic, metal, packaging industries, food and beverage, and the production of plastic containers and advanced materials. The software life cycle is an extremely important development process for building the state-of-art of software products and it is a process that requires methodology, control, and appropriate documentation. For companies, quality assurance in software development has become a very expensive activity from an economic point of view and the verification and validation phase is essential to reduce these costs. The starting point of the thesis consists of the analysis and evaluation of the answers obtained through a company survey submitted to the software developers during the first phase of the internship. Subsequently, the description of a typical software life cycle management is predominant, with particular attention to the Verification and Validation phase, explained through some practice examples. Afterward, we will analyze in detail the different methodologies and strategies of the Software Verification and Validation process, starting from static analysis, passing through classical methodologies of dynamic analysis, and concluding with innovative Verification and Validation solutions to automate the process. The main goal of the thesis is the optimization and standardization of the automation software life cycle of the host company, proposing innovative solutions for every single phase of the process and possible future research and updates.