Developing innovative solutions effectively

Responding better to customer needs

For Peter Bode, only Rhapsody® was under consideration from the beginning – especially because of its leading options for modelling and full automatic code generation. “Often we are confronted with the situation that product requirements have not yet been completely defined at the beginning of the project. With Rhapsody®, we can represent new functionalities graphically and present various possibilities for a solution to our customers. This allows us to respond flexibly and address needs much better.”

Success-critical advantages

“Many of the products we develop must meet extremely stringent requirements in terms of quality and electromagnetic compatibility. In addition to the advantages already mentioned, significantly better product quality is therefore a critical success factor for us.” Other advantages cited by Peter Bode are

• significantly higher efficiency
• easy training for new employees
• simpler software maintenance
• better consistency when changes are made and
• the fact that the documentation, model, and code are always at the latest level.

Accompanied project start-up

To be able to work efficiently in a short amount of time, three employees attended a relevant tool training session before Rhapsody® was introduced. A coach ensured seamless tool integration into existing infrastructures on site. The first development project was completed within nine months: two auxiliary unit inverters for the EvoBus Citaro Diesel Hybrid Bus. Currently there are three products developed with Rhapsody® on the market.

Lessons learned

On-site support coordinated by EVOCEAN was important for ensuring an efficient start. “The five-day Embedded UML Studio start-up training was also worth its weight in gold,” adds Peter Bode. “I would recommend Rhapsody® at any time. Today we are able to concentrate on the actual problem of an application. We are today significantly more efficient than in projects in which we’re not yet using Rhapsody®.”

Looking ahead

Something Peter Bode would like in the future is an integrated solution for “Performance Testing” in the embedded software on the target platform. The next goal is for additional savings in time and money. “So far we have invested primarily in improving quality. Now we would like to improve our time to market and reduce costs by about 30%. I’m convinced that we’re on the right path with Rhapsody®.”