Fast and successful implementation of itemis ANALYZE
After some market research KOSTAL finally decided to go with itemis ANALYZE from itemis. Starting with a first proof of concept, itemis supported the successful implementation in several mass-production projects. The capability of itemis ANALYZE to store trace links in an invasive way allowed KOSTAL to use most of the development artifacts unchanged. That was possible, because most artifacts already contained “foreign keys”. As a result, the implementation of the solution was very fast and without the usual obstructions occurring, if you are forced to change existing artifacts.
itemis ANALYZE also supports to add and aggregate additional data to the trace links. In order to make the trace data available for data analysis and reporting, all trace links are regularly exported in a continuous integration procedure to an existing DB Schema. itemis ANALYZE itself supports ad hoc analysis and metrics as well as role- and project-specific queries based on a powerful and easy to learn query language.
A good example of a role specific metric is a coverage metric, that allows one to identify necessary tasks for “uncovered” requirements – a very helpful support metric for project managers and the QA team. Project managers also really appreciated the support for impact analysis in the case of change requests. The QA team also benefit from backward traceability allowing them to see affected artifacts in the case of failed tests.
As a side effect, looking in detail at all existing artifacts and tools in the process helped to identify further process improvements.
Successful finalisation of ASPICE Assessment
At the end of the implementation KOSTAL successfully finalised the Automotive SPICE Level 3 assessment. Additionally, end users reported further benefits such as, the good usability of itemis ANALYZE, and the easy-to-use support for navigating from one development artifact to all dependent ones. Both of which led to a higher efficiency.
KOSTAL plans to fully roll-out the solution in 2017 and is currently investigating the possibility of using itemis ANALYZE in their non-automotive projects. itemis will further support KOSTAL with the implementation of additional sophisticated ad hoc metrics and role specific data analysis.
