Expensive, time intensive and inefficient

In PTC Integrity all toolchain elements can only be stored in two “tools”: Workflow & Documents” (WF&D) or “Sources” – not enough for the complexity of modern day development toolchains. Though PTC Integrity offers solutions for some tools such as Enterprise Architect, these are expensive and time intensive. For other tools, such as Autosar, there are no such solutions.

Furthermore it was difficult to reach the desired granularity of traceability to certain file types, such as excel, source files and other non-WF&D documents. Integrity allows only traces to source on a file level for example and not down to specific functions or other elements in the source code.

BRACE made the following demands on the needed traceability tool:

  • Completeness of traceability over the entire toolchain
  • Ease of trace creation and maintenance
  • Ease and completeness of coverage reporting
  • Costs for initial, development and licenses
  • Usability and effectivity with itemis ANALYZE

Impressive navigation, visualization and flexibility

After careful consideration itemis ANALYZE was chosen as the preferred solution. The main reasons were the combination of completeness of traceability vs costs. While PTC’s offered solution would probably have been able to achieve a similar result on the main requirements, the costs of realization was a factor 2 higher.

Furthermore the ease of navigation through traceability trees, the visualization options and the flexibility of the reporting that itemis ANALYZE offered were impressing. The non-intrusive nature of the tool means that the database does not get inflated, even though the amount of elements that are available for tracing is much higher than in other offered solutions. Connectors to PTC Integrity that allow to show all existing traces in Integrity seamlessly in itemis ANALYZE were provided.

Thus the already existing relationship structure in Integrity was safeguarded. Furthermore the tool has a good usability: Users were able to work with it after just a short introduction.