TechExcel Enables Total Traceability
Organizations building complex or regulated products need to ensure those products adhere to all requirements through development, testing, and release. Manufacturers, game developers, software companies and leaders across industries rely on TechExcel’s DevSuite to provide the total traceability and product quality they need.
“Traditionally, our customers have primarily been software companies but lately device companies have been seeking us out in greater numbers,” said Jeff Johnstone, VP of sales and marketing at TechExcel. “A hardware product nearly always has hardware, firmware, and software requirements that must work together. It’s imperative for the success of the product that you’re able to verify that everything you designed works correctly in all possible configurations.”
TechExcel’s flagship product, DevSuite, is specifically designed for large teams building complex products such as hardware devices, regulated solutions, and multi-platform software. Such organizations need more structured requirements traceability and quality management than pure agile processes provide.
“Our customers rely on DevSuite to ensure they’re releasing not only the core functionality they intended, but also that the product complies with external requirements such as regulatory standards, customer-specific requests, marketing guidelines, etc. And, when needed, DevSuite provides the complete audit trail from development through testing and release.” Johnstone said.
DevSuite integrates with popular third-party products including testing and test automation tools, bug tracking systems, version control systems, source code management systems, and more so customers can continue using familiar tools when needed.
“You can use as much or as little of DevSuite as you need.” said Johnstone. “With open APIs as well as out-of-the box integration with many tools, we have the flexibility to deploy exactly the right solution based on our customer’s needs.”
DevSuite Ensures Product Quality
To deliver a quality product, especially when both hardware and software are involved, it must not only be bug-free, but must also provide the features, functionality, and user experience customers require. To further complicate matters, these requirements often evolve and change from the beginning of a release cycle to the end. DevSuite provides the dynamic links between requirements, development, and testing to ensure you release the highest quality products.
DevSuite also provides powerful workflow and task controls. It tracks and manages all aspects of a development project, from feature stories and implementation tasks to product defects and change requests. Teams can effectively plan, organize, and execute development using tools that support their everyday practices, whether those practices are agile, waterfall, or hybrid.
In addition, DevSuite helps organizations enforce testing standards and it improves efficiency by linking testing, planning and execution with defect submission and resolution, so software teams can implement quality processes earlier in the development cycle. With DevSuite, software teams can centralize and streamline test management. The solution also helps software teams meet delivery dates with greater precision, address complex modern testing challenges, and ensure the quality of deliverable software.
“We’ve had a long history of success with game developers,” said Johnstone. “Every game these days is released on multiple platforms from mobile devices to consoles to online so there’s huge compatibility testing that has to happen. While games involve a highly creative process, there are extremely complex underlying structures that have to be architected and validated. That kind of complexity lends itself well to our solution.”
Companies that manufacture regulated products such as medical devices and casino gaming platforms need to adhere to strict government standards. “DevSuite links both internal functional requirements and external requirements with your test cases and results, so when a government agency like the FDA asks to see all of your tests, you have ready access to the complete documented audit trail including digital signatures,” said Johnstone.
For one medical testing device manufacturer who was initially looking for only a requirements solution, the traceability benefits of DevSuite were immediately apparent.
“Initially, they thought they wanted to manage just their requirements but as we worked with them they realized that they needed to be able to take those requirements and manage them through the complete development, testing, and bug fixing lifecycle,” said Johnstone, “and they ended up deploying the entire DevSuite.”
Similarly, an industry leading IT consultancy recently returned to DevSuite after 2 years of trying to deploy a low-end solution that was ultimately unable to scale to their size and adapt to their processes.
Multisite Streamlines Globally Distributed Development
DevSuite’s multi-site architecture also overcomes the challenges of complex distributed development by providing unlimited scalability through site expansion, 100 percent uptime via alternate site access, and local access performance for all teams using minimal bandwidth.
“We have customers who develop hardware and software components in different parts of the world, and customers who have outsourced portions of their testing process. Many of these companies had previously tried lower-end products but found that they didn’t scale very well, both in terms of team size and geography, and the large number of records being tracked.” said Johnstone. “For companies like these, DevSuite is the ideal solution.”
For more information, visit www.techexcel.com.
