Embedded Systems, Mechatronics and Virtual Instrumentation

Embedded Systems - Mechatronics
Virtual Instrumentation

YouTube NetworkYouTube Network

The Galtotronic Logo
"Making your Dreams
come true"

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Galtotronic will make you to answer YES to the following questions:

DOES USING THE PRODUCT MAKE USER HAPPY?
DO THEY FEEL GOOD ABOUT THEMSELVES
BECAUSE THEY OWN AND USE IT?

Galtotronic is available to evaluate and elaborate the ideas and suggestions of its clientele and eventually to industrialise the products created from them with the aim of being able to offer increasingly better performing and exclusive devices.

We invite our clients to contact our Research and Development Laboratory. This is an invitation to develop and industrialise products from the ideas or from a vision.

PROBLEMS WITH TRADITIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Traditionally, companies are structured in departments. Each department covers different aspect of the product. Very often, there is poor communication between departments and the concept of cross functional team work just remains on the text book.

Occasionally, there is even competition between departments. The outcome of such situations is that each department runs their own business and loosing the company’s targets and interests.

The following picture shows a typical model of the traditional development structure.

Traditional Management

From experience, there could be a situation where part of a company is not aware of the activities done by the rest of the company. Also, it is not easy and common to find engineers with experience on different fields and with interface skills towards different aspect of Engineering.

The results of such status quo are virtual walls and cultural barriers between departments and different operational sectors of the company. This could propose challenges to the success of the company business. If customers feels such environment could walk away for ever.


ADVANTAGES WITH GALTOTRONIC’s SERVICE
Galtotronic's experience specializes in Automation, Control Systems and Computer science for the different industries like: Factory Automation, Robotics, CNC Machinery, Embedded Systems and Modern
Lifestyle.

Galtotronic's experience goes from Electrical design and drafting, to Hardware Development and Design, to Electrical Engineering, to Embedded Systems development, to Software Engineering and Development, to Project Management, to Prototype building to Lab work, to Service and Customer Support.

Galtotronic enjoys any aspect of the development process, from the requirements capture to the design to the manufacturing of the prototype with hands on. The following picture shows the Galtotronic’s development structure and project management. Galtotronic’s service could offer you such an approach.

No Walls

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

The following general model of a product development process will vary in detail between projects and products. The process is both cyclic and linear. Any implementation of it needs a balance between continuous iteration and simply getting the job done.

Development Process


PROJECT MANAGEMENT MODEL

Galtotronic™'s Project Management model is the  V-model. The V-model is a software development process which can be presumed to be the extension of the waterfall model. Instead of moving down in a linear way, the process steps are bent upwards after the coding phase, to form the typical V shape. The V-Model demonstrates the relationships between each phase of the development life cycle and its associated phase of testing.
The V-model deploys a well-structured method in which each phase can be implemented by the detailed documentation of the previous phase. Testing activities like test designing start at the beginning of the project well before coding and therefore saves a huge amount of the project time.

The V model

Verification Phase

Requirements analysis
In the Requirements analysis phase, the requirements of the proposed system are collected by analysing the needs of the user(s). This phase is concerned about establishing what the ideal system has to perform. However it does not determine how the software will be designed or built. Usually, the users are interviewed and a document called the user requirements document is generated.

The user requirements document will typically describe the system’s functional, physical, interface, performance, data, security requirements etc as expected by the user. It is one which the business analysts use to communicate their understanding of the system back to the users. The users carefully review this document as this document would serve as the guideline for the system designers in the system design phase. The user acceptance tests are designed in this phase. See also Functional requirements, and Non-functional requirements


System Design
Systems design is the phase where system engineers analyse and understand the business of the proposed system by studying the user requirements document. They figure out possibilities and techniques by which the user requirements can be implemented. If any of the requirements are not feasible, the user is informed of the issue. A resolution is found and the user requirement document is edited accordingly.

The software specification document which serves as a blueprint for the development phase is generated. This document contains the general system organization, menu structures, data structures etc. It may also hold example business scenarios, sample windows, reports for the better understanding. Other technical documentation like entity diagrams, data dictionary will also be produced in this phase. The documents for system testing is prepared in this phase.


Architecture Design
The phase of the design of computer architecture and software architecture can also be referred to as high-level design. The baseline in selecting the architecture is that it should realize all which typically consists of the list of modules, brief functionality of each module, their interface relationships, dependencies, database tables, architecture diagrams, technology details etc. The integration testing design is carried out in this phase.


Module Design
The module design phase can also be referred to as low-level design. The designed system is broken up in to smaller units or modules and each of them is explained so that the programmer can start coding directly. The low level design document or program specifications will contain a detailed functional logic of the module, in pseudocode - database tables, with all elements, including their type and size - all interface details with complete API references- all dependency issues- error message listings- complete input and outputs for a module. The unit test design is developed in this stage.


Validation Phases

Unit Testing
In the V-model of software development, unit testing implies the first stage of dynamic testing process. According to software development expert Barry Boehm, a fault discovered and corrected in the unit testing phase is more than a hundred times cheaper than if it is done after delivery to the customer.

It involves analysis of the written code with the intention of eliminating errors. It also verifies that the codes are efficient and adheres to the adopted coding standards. Testing is usually white box. It is done using the Unit test design prepared during the module design phase. This may be carried out by software testers, software developers or both.


Integration Testing
In integration testing the separate modules will be tested together to expose faults in the interfaces and in the interaction between integrated components. Testing is usually black box as the code is not directly checked for errors. It is done using the integration test design prepared during the architecture design phase. Integration testing is generally conducted by software testers.


System Testing
System testing will compare the system specifications against the actual system. The system test design is derived from the system design documents and is used in this phase. Sometimes system testing is automated using testing tools. Once all the modules are integrated several errors may arise. Testing done at this stage is called system testing.


Galtotronic is willing to undertake the opportunity to offer its cross functional experience to successful companies like yours. Please contact us today to discuss further your project management needs. We would like to hear from you.