The sustainable performance of a product is growing in importance and is now viewed equally as critical as traditional design criteria, such as size, weight, cost, and performance.
It is no longer seen as a nice add on, in fact it is fundamental and, with this in mind, needs to be built in from the outset. The challenge is to close the loop so that we ensure all requirements can be built into the process upfront and carried through the design and engineering process and verified through valid tests at the end of the process.
In the present landscape, we use CAD, PLM and developing software and defining those requirements is a mixed approach that makes it hard to work collaboratively. This could be about to change with Codebeamer, a product we recently added to our portfolio when PTC acquired Intland.
This solution is a very capable cloud web user interface, focusing on requirements engineering, risk management, and test management linked and traced together. It is powerful around areas like agile to facilitate contemporary approaches for design and integration with technologies like GitHub, and Jenkins for CI/CD pipelines. It also delivers numerous out of the box templates that offer processes ready for critical aerospace and defence (DA178) or automotive (226262) industry standards.
Facilitating collaboration and closing the loop
Rather than just relying on ad hoc documentation and then going straight into the design, PTC can now provide a complete upfront ‘requirements engineering’ environment.
People can work together, and you can have different stakeholders. People with different viewpoints can document those requirements together so that when you move into design, CAD, or the software environment, which you are recording in ALM or PLM, you can reference back to those requirements until you are satisfied.
The critical capability, not just for software but also for the whole product, is the environment for defining the requirements of the product. Historically, or in other settings, this is conducted by email, word documents or spreadsheets. Using a database-centric, multiuser environment, you can build the requirements for all the stakeholders, track them, and make sure you have not missed any.
It is not just the sizes and colours of the parts that can be tracked, but also any sustainability or ecological requirements. This means that you can have stakeholders for the product design, security, renewability, ecological and environmental concerns at the front end, all contributing to the end result.
Then at the back end, we create tests for the product that ensure these requirements are satisfied – in essence, we’re creating a virtuous loop ensure that what was implemented and delivered meets those original stakeholders' requirements.
Moving to requirements-based testing
Part of closing this loop is validating that the end product meets the requirements and that it is conducted through testing. Traditionally, you would adopt a back-end testing approach, but the trouble with that is you cannot test in quality; this must be designed.
Creating those tests right at the beginning and having them linked up and not having a separate discipline of Quality Assurance that is isolated from the designers, means you are proving the requirements. It goes both ways; you want to make sure that you are not only testing everything you need, but also not delivering things you do not need. It is both building the right system and building it right. Reviewing system requirements in the planning phase of a test effort reduces rework, errors, and defects.
The connection between requirements, design and testing is essential. When defining a need for a product, such as a car's stopping distance, several parameters combine to enable this. The best time to create the test plans for the whole product is while you are defining those requirements because they lead straight into one another.
When PTC do it in Codebeamer, we create the tests as plans right up front when we define requirements, and they are linked and traced together, so we know which test is testing which requirement. First, we validate the test to check that they are valid and meet testing requirements, then later, we verify the product and make sure it matches the test. So therefore, proving the product does what the stakeholders want you to do.
PTC already has a highly successful PLM solution in Windchill and Codebeamer's ALM and requirements-based engineering approach complements this offering. In addition, we are currently working on extending Codebeamer with Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) which Windchill already has, so that in the near future it can connect to the PTC Digital Thread.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.