Product category:
Design and Development Software
News Release from: Verum | Subject: Analytical Software Design
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 03 June 2005
Analytical design speeds software
development
The application of Analytical Software Design on behalf of Philips Applied Technologies has resulted in a 10x reduction in software defects in comparison with the traditional approach.
The application of Verum Consultants' Analytical Software Design (ASD) on behalf of Philips Applied Technologies, Department of Mechatronics has resulted in a 10x reduction in software defects in comparison with a traditional approach to implementing the same functionality Philips Applied Technologies deployed this new approach from Verum to deliver industrial quality levels to software and predictable time to market for future projects
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 17 Sep 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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It found that ASD resulted in a design and implementation of a much higher quality than can be achieved by conventional methods, with a 10-fold reduction in software defects found during initial integration testing.
Using ASD gave the team the ability to automatically generate up to 90% of the code from the verified design specifications.
Furthermore, the application of ASD was cost neutral over conventional design methods.
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"I have a much higher level of confidence in the quality of software produced using ASD than that produced using conventional methods".
"ASD is the first formal method informal enough to be applied in practice", said GMP Haagh, Senior Software Architect, Department of Mechatronics, Philips Applied Technologies.
"For future projects, the application of ASD will result in a predictable completion date", he added.
A joint development team from Philips Applied Technologies, Department of Mechatronics and Verum Consultants together applied ASD techniques to the development of the MagLev stage.
This is a subsystem designed to be incorporated into a variety of industrial systems that require medium speed, highly accurate positioning, scanning or contouring for applications in a broad range of semiconductor related environments.
This enabled the complete software design to be modelled mathematically and model-checked for correctness prior to implementation.
"Existing software development methods have reached a quality ceiling that incremental improvements in process and technology are failing to break".
"Verum's ASD provides a radically new approach to addressing this issue as the results from Philips Applied Technologies, Department of Mechatronics show", said Robert Howe, CEO, Verum Consultants.
ASD is a technique developed by Verum that applies software engineering mathematics, developed by the University of Oxford, to industrial software development.
Verum uses ASD to produce a functional model of the software design that is verifiably correct.
This is exactly how a structural engineer would verify that a building's design is structurally sound before construction commences.
By removing functional errors before coding commences, developers are able to dramatically increase the quality of the implementation and ultimately the quality of the final product.
Current defect removal strategies only identify errors during or after coding is complete and testing commences - an approach that is exceedingly costly and dramatically increases time to market.
According to the Sustainable Computing Consortium there are typically 20 to 30 bugs per thousand lines of software code, and The National Institute of Standards and Technology recently reported that developers typically spend 80% of development costs on identifying and correcting errors.
ASD specifications are understandable and usable by project stakeholders without knowledge of software engineering mathematics; there is no complex mathematical notation to be learned.
ASD enables experienced consultants from Verum to work productively together with domain experts in a joint design team in an existing software development environment and with software engineers and architects not specifically trained in the method.
Philips Applied Technologies is part of Royal Philips Electronics and supports Philips, its partners and suppliers as well as a selected number of non-Philips companies through the application of a range of technologies.
A project summary and technical paper on the Philips Applied Technologies, Department of Mechatronics project is available from the Verum Consultants website.
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