Geensys launches Reqtify 3.1

Reqtify 3.1 includes a new plug-in – the Reqtify RIF Gateway - that facilitates the import/export of specifications in the XML-based Requirements Interchange Format (RIF). Created by HIS, a joint standard initiative of the German automotive industry, RIF meets the component requirements specification challenges presented by the burgeoning electronic and mechatronic content in vehicles. It addresses the need to improve specification exchange efficiency and the problems associated with the deployment of heterogeneous requirements engineering tools within the embedded industry as a whole. The addition of the RIF gateway significantly improves the compatibility of Reqtify with ReqCenter, the first open, standards-based peer-to-peer requirements sharing and exchange tool for embedded systems development launched by Geensys earlier in the year.

Reqtify 3.1 also significantly improves multi-user usage of the tool with the ability to individually control access to a variety of activities such as project configuration, customisation of analysis types, filters and marks creation as well as added information such as traceability data, attributes and textual comments. Additional user-requested features and usability enhancements incorporated in Reqtify 3.1 include an undo/redo capability that operates on element editions such as attributes, reference attributes and coverage link creation, the ability to add coverage links inside a folder and reference attributes in the graphical view as well as the ability to zoom in and out of the project configuration view including all the captured diagrams and create a requirements hierarchy. It is also now possible to re-order attribute values, re-use existing filters as a starting template for new filter editions and add multiple configuration directories. Improvements have also been made to the html document creation and picture handling capabilities.

Furthermore, Reqtify 3.1 incorporates new interfaces to third party tools as well as improvements to existing interfaces designed to address the evolving requirements of a fast moving third party eco-system. New interfaces have been created for the CaliberRM requirements management tool, the Test Stand test tool from National Instruments and various additional authoring tools including Scade, LabVIEW and Rose RealTime. Existing interfaces to Artisan Studio, DOORS, RequisitePRO and Rhapsody as well as the Microsoft Office Suite have been enhanced to provide new features and improved performance. With these additions and improvements, Reqtify 3.1 now offers interfaces to over 60 different development tools commonly used in the embedded industry.

“Reqtify is a unique requirements engineering solution, enabling requirements tracking throughout development lifecycle of both software and hardware,” said Eric Larronde-Larretche, Reqtify Product Manager at Geensys. “Reqtify 3.1 provides more flexibility and openness to fit a market which is fast moving and highly receptive to technical evolution and innovation.”

Reqtify is the most widely deployed solution for addressing requirements capture, traceability and impact analysis in the most demanding, safety-critical domains such as the aerospace and defence, railway transportation, automotive and medical instrumentation industries. “Understanding the strategic needs of our customers and being able to quickly adapt our solution to fit their existing processes as well as connect to their development workbenches have been key criteria in our success.” said Eliane Fourgeau, VP Sales and Marketing at Geensys. “The deployment of Reqtify has been significantly broadened through successive OEM integration agreements including those with Artisan Software Tools, Esterel Technology, I-Logix / Telelogic, LDRA and National Instruments.”

Reqtify enables automatic and customisable document generation as evidence that a product meets certification and/or quality constraint requirements at all times throughout the development cycle. Thanks to its impact analysis and requirements coverage capabilities, Reqtify gives all project stakeholders a thorough insight into the effort required to complete each project task (specification, design, V&V activities, integration) and for each product release. It gives a unique and global view of the overall project status enabling project leaders and quality managers to perform risk analyses and to prove compliancy with project requirements and constraints. As such, Reqtify is recognised as a solution that can provide an immediate return-on-investment for projects initiated under quality standards objectives like CMMI or Spice. It has also been deployed or qualified for application development under certification constraints like DO178B, DO254, EN50128, IEC 61508, FDA 21CFR Part 11, MODAF and DoDAF.

With Reqtify, engineers can continue to use their existing working environments to fulfill traceability objectives. Verification engineers can link verification plans and results to both system and technical requirements assessments to prove that all requirements have been properly verified. Designers and coders can easily add traceability data within their authoring tools or directly in the code itself using their favourite IDE. This way, everyone stays in their “comfort zone” with Reqtify acting as a “data broker” and monitoring the overall coherence against project objectives. As a consequence, visibility of project metrics and final project quality are drastically improved.