MKS Integrity and the Automotive Industry

MKS INTEGRITY FUELS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FOR AUTOMOTIVE ORGANIZATIONS

MKS Integrity delivers powerful tools for the automotive industry to manage the development of embedded software systems in vehicles. Technical innovation plays a key role in the success of the development teams in these organizations. To achieve sustainable success, this technical innovation must be managed across market demands, cost control, quality, time-to-market and protection of trade secrets.

"MKS Integrity is the backbone of Hella's development activities.
It would be impossible to facilitate projects of this magnitude under such tight time constraints without this solution.
It allows for better, faster, and easier collaboration."

- Jurgen Belz, Head of Automotive Software Standards, Hella Corporation

Click here to read the Hella Case Study

What can MKS Integrity do for companies in the Automotive industry?
What business challenges can MKS Integrity solve for Automotive companies?
Who uses MKS Integrity in this Industry?
Where can I learn more?
Contact sales to inquire about MKS Integrity

MKS customers in the automotive industry include a high proportion that have standardized on MKS Integrity as a global collaboration platform for end-to-end Application Lifecycle Management. Major OEMs and suppliers around the world are trust MKS Integrity to help them manage increasingly complex and interwoven embedded software applications.

What can MKS Integrity do for companies in the Automotive industry?

MKS Integrity enables managed technical innovation for companies in the automotive industry. MKS has extensive experience with the automotive industry and provides thought leadership for enterprise ALM in this space. As OEMs and suppliers in automotive move towards an “n to n” environment (matrixed, bidirectional relationships between and among OEMs and suppliers), this increases requirements data interaction between the OEMs and the suppliers. This evolution represents an opportunity for organizations to recognize overlap and consolidate development operations to enable greater re-use of software components to fit multiple OEM requirements. MKS Integrity provides a solution simplifies the recognition and leverage of these overlap opportunities.

MKS delivers numerous solution frameworks from years of work with companies at the forefront of best practice in areas such as Software Product Lines, FMEA, SPICE and SIL IEC 61508/ISO 26262. MKS Integrity supports a number of concurrent development methodologies such as V-Model, Agile, and various other iterative models. The result is the ability to immediately adopt the appropriate solution framework to deliver a rapid time-to-value for the implementation of MKS Integrity.

Application Lifecycle Management Bus (ALIB)
Today’s software development challenges are exponentially more complex, requiring collaboration and integration across corporate divisions, geographies, and suppliers. This problem transcends simple data exchange methods and requires strict process models to deliver against business and product compliance. To address these challenges, MKS provides an integration framework called ALIB, which enables companies to fulfill these collaboration requirements in a highly automated manner, enforcing processes while driving increased productivity.

Requirements Interchange Format (RIF)
MKS is a leading contributor to the Requirements Interchange Format (RIF) initiative to enable the lossless exchange of requirements across manufacturers. The RIF initiative is led by the ProSTEP iViP Association with the goal of achieving common standards for software modules, process maturity levels, software test, software tools and programming of control units. The MKS implementation of RIF means each supplier is free to choose the appropriate requirements management solution according to their own needs and is able to retrieve and deliver requirements and/or specifications in a standardized format.

This functionality supporting the needs of the automotive industry extends through the entire application lifecycle, from Requirements Management, through Software Configuration and Change Management to Testing and Release Management. The unified architecture of the MKS platform provides unparalleled process flexibility and interconnectivity across all artifacts and all stages of the lifecycle.

What business challenges can MKS Integrity solve for Automotive companies?

MKS Integrity delivers increased flexibility, transparency and control for development of embedded software and systems in the automotive industry. With MKS Integrity, automotive industry participants can:

Capture high volumes of frequently-changing market demands and safety/regulatory requirements for use and re-use throughout the managed software components
Ensure effective communication and collaboration across teams including multiple offices, product lines and subcontractors
Improve cost control for software development with an empirical base for cost and effort estimation
Achieve compliance with industry standards such as IEC 61508 in addition to maturity and security models such as SPiCE or SIL
Accelerate time-to-market by through automation of development review & approval processes
Re-use software components, code, requirements, test cases and other artifacts across multiple product lines for reduced costs and timelines
Protect know-how across the development lifecycle without sacrificing productivity; maintain security policies even for geographically dispersed teams and joint venture projects

Who uses MKS Integrity in this Industry?

Leading automotive manufacturers and suppliers around the world rely on MKS Integrity to help them deliver high-quality solutions while controlling costs. More than 30 independent customers (subsidiaries not counted separately) in the automotive industry include over 23,000 users across 100+ locations.

"MKS has enabled us to become compliant with Spice Level 3, and we have significantly reduced development time for each project. We have cut our three year development cycle by a third with a significant increase in scope per project, and a doubling of projects on an annual basis."
Jurgen Belz, Head of Automotive Software Standards, Hella KGaA Hueck & Co

"After an extensive examination of all leading software configuration management tool offerings and a very successful field pilot, we have selected MKS as the best fit for our worldwide software configuration needs. More than any other, MKS delivers a solution that meets our significant technical requirements for enterprise SCM."
Helmut Fennel, Vice President, Continental Teves

MKS customers in the automotive sector include:

Audi AG
Autoliv Electronics AB
Behr Automobiltechnik GmbH & Co.
Behr-Hella Thermocontrol GmbH
Continental AG
Daimler AG
Daimler TSS GmbH
dSPACE GmbH
Getrag GmbH & Cie
Getrag Innovations GmbH
Helbako GmbH
Hella KGaA Hueck & Co
Honda Racing
Johnson Controls
Knorr-Bremse GmbH
Lucas Varity GmbH
LUK GmbH & Co
MAGNA Electronics Europe GmbH & Co. KG
Magna Powertrain AG
MAGNA STEYR Fahrzeugtechnik AG & Co KG
Mazda Australia
Mercedes Benz High Performance Engines
Micron Electronic Devices AG
Moehwald GmbH
NuCellSys GmbH
Renault F1 Team Limited
Robert Bosch GmbH
Tele-Atlas N.V.
TRW Automotive
Vodafone Team McLaren Mercedes F1
Volkswagen AG
WABCO GmbH
ZF Lemförder Fahrwerktechnik GmbH & Co.KG

Where can I learn more?

Webinar: Driving Compliance, Planning and Re-use with Test Management at Continental Automotive(registration required)

Webinar: Is Embedded Software Special? Meeting the Traceabilty and Auditability Needs of Embedded Software Development with MKS Integrity for Requirements Management (registration required)

Case Study: Continental Automotive

Case Study: Hella Automotive