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Integrating Rhapsody® into Customer Platform

Complex development tasks, limited resources, and deadline pressure. To deal effectively with these challenges, the Research Department of Schindler recently switched to Model Driven Development with Rational Rhapsody® from IBM. EVOCEAN supported the project team in integrating the UML tool into the existing development infrastructure and target platform.

The Challenge

Schindler Aufzüge AG is a globally active manufacturer of elevators and escalators. Schindler owes its leading market position in part to its successful implementation of new technologies. But time cycles for developing new products and bringing them to market are being squeezed more tightly even as cost pressure grows. To meet these challenges with limited resources, the company decided early in 2008 to create a consistent and transparent development environment. An important consideration was the ability to rapidly implement the new solution into existing infrastructures.

The Solution

An analysis of the situation showed that the only way to achieve the ambitious goals was by using Model Driven Development with Rational Rhapsody®. This UML-based tool ensures a completely consistent reusable model up to and including the code on the target platform and integrated debugging.

  • UML with Rational Rhapsody® from IBM
  • Target platform with Coldfire and several CAN interfaces
  • IDE GNU / C++
  • RTOS eCosCentric
  • Lauterbach Trace32 debugger.

Seamless integration gives users the best of both worlds by combining the advantages of Model Driven Development with those of traditional debugging.

  • Early testing of the application thanks to executable models (can be used hardware-independently)
  • Complete code generation from models to target platform
  • Direct switching from model debugging to hardware debugging.

The Role of EVOCEAN

EVOCEAN is an “Advanced Business Partner” of IBM in Switzerland. As a Rational Rhapsody® competence center, we have not only access to all tools, but also to the internal know-how and knowledge pool of the Rhapsody® developers. Our team of consultants has broad technical knowledge and many years of experience in the area of Model Driven Development.

This background allowed us to provide highly effective support for Schindler in integrating Rhapsody®:

  • Consulting to select a development environment
  • Clarification of outstanding items and risk evaluations
  • Comprehensive checklists for starting a project efficiently

Integration of Rational Rhapsody® into customer specific development environments and target platform

  • On-site integration and on-the-job training
  • Know-how transfer and exchange of experience
  • Fixed cost and schedule.

Added Value for Customers

Model Driven Development with Rational Rhapsody® radically simplifies software development and helps customers to get a handle on the complexity and risks of a project quickly.

Efficient collaboration with the Schindler project team ensured integration on time and in budget. Both parties were able to apply their strengths and experience optimally in the project.

Looking Ahead

With the integration of the complete development environment future software components will be developed more effectively. To be able to use animation on the model level via the debugger JTAG interface on the target as well, the availability of a development target with more RAM is being evaluated. This would make it possible to benefit from additional advantages of Model Driven Development.

Customers about our services

Mettler Toledo AG

„Development in the embedded area should be platform independent and the used tools should support this!“

Wolfgang Boos

Head Software Development

Bernina International AG

„Dank der Modelle können wir neue Funktionen und Abhängigkeiten visualisieren. Ein Bild sagt mehr als 1‘000 Worte und die grafisch modellierte Abstraktion macht uns Entwicklern das Leben sehr viel einfacher. Gleichzeitig nimmt uns die mit dem Modell verbundene Codegenerierung einen grossen Teil der Arbeit ab!“

Giovanni Annunzio

System Architect

Bosch

"Ein grosses Lob an den sehr motivierten Trainer. Der Trainingsinhalt wird sehr kurzweilig und auch unterhaltsam vermittelt. Methodisch sehr gut war auch die jeweiligen Trainingstage am Ende nochmals Revue passieren zu lassen. Frank Braun konnte auch jede Frage beantworten und hat auch versucht, sofern der zeitliche Rahmes es erlaubte, auf angesprochenen Themen einzugehen."

N.N.

Systems Engineer

Bosch

A warm praise to the very motivated trainer. The training content is conveyed in a very enjoyable and entertaining way. It was also very good to review the respective training days at the end. Frank Braun was able to answer every question and also tried, as far as time allowed, to address further topics raised.

N.N.

Systems Engineer

Perforce Helix Core Kunde welcher verkauft wurde an globalen Leader.

"Perforce Helix Core erfüllt unsere Erwartungen vollumfänglich. Wir haben eine Lösung aus einer Hand auf welche wir uns verlassen können."

Leiter Produktentwicklung

Schmidhauser AG

"A picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks to Rational Rhapsody® models, we can discuss new functionalities much better with our customers – even without knowledge of the code."

Peter Bode

Project Manager Mobile Drives

soplar s.a. – Training

„Starting to use Rational Rhapsody®without coaching or training is not recommended. Understanding the why behind certain processes is essential to working effectively. Training with EVOCEAN was very valuable for me in this regard."

Vitali Mozgovoi

Software Developer

Hamilton Medical AG – Rhapsody

„The direct coupling of design and code with Rhapsody helps us managing the complexity of our products more easily, as design and code remain consistent in the long term.“

Andreas Anderegg

Senior Software Engineer

Schleuniger AG

„Thanks to the fully automatic code generation with Rhapsody® we could accelerate the software development.“

Thomas Nyffenegger

Team Lead Software

SIX Financial Information Ltd

„The EVOCEAN continuous improvement method stabilized our processes and had a positive influence on the quality and on the satisfaction of the employees. I would recommend to use this approach at any time. Continuous improvement must become a part of everyday work."

Michael K. Steinhöfel-Cordova

Head of Quality Management