Spanish components manufacturer for domestic appliances selects Siemens Digital Industries Software solution to improve processes

Striving for greatness

Copreci S. Coop (Copreci) is a global leader in the gas cooking sector. With its main operations based in Spain, Copreci develops, manufactures and markets a complete line of components and systems for gas cooking equipment and induction cooktops. The company also has a wide family of components for washing appliances and gas heating systems.

Looking to build on its success, Copreci realized to grow even further process changes were necessary. In fact, the company conducted an internal diagnosis of its software development processes. The company’s self-scouting showed Copreci needed to improve the communication and collaboration between project teams in the company’s different business areas. There was also an incomplete lifecycle management solution, and requirements and specifications were poorly maintained in the document software program Copreci was using at the time. In addition, Copreci found it difficult to achieve traceability and produce the documentation needed to comply with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 60730 safety standard for household appliances and other regulatory bodies.

Following its internal investigation, Copreci contracted Fraunhofer FIRST Institute Services and Siemens technology partner ULMA Embedded Solutions to conduct an external diagnosis that suggested consistency and accuracy in and between documents needed to be improved. To do this, Copreci needed to use a strict version-control management software. That software could also be used to strengthen modeling, model-based development and model checking.

In addition, higher-quality assurance was needed to ensure traceability between requirements, models and code, the use of coding rules and acknowledged best practices, and to re-factor the company’s error handling and interrupt routines.

Finally, Fraunhofer and ULMA Embedded Solutions recommended that Copreci introduce an independent code review to separate development and quality assurance and enhance the software module test and automate hardware-in-the-loop tests.

Choosing Polarion

For years, Copreci was using a popular project management system for requirements and software management but found the system to be limited due to its poor traceability, lack of version control and non-existent variants management. The company needed to find a better solution.

Copreci’s search pointed to the need for a single, unified solution for requirements and software lifecycle management. The solution needed to be able to easily implement all traceability and reporting required for the IEC 60730 Safety Standard for Household Appliances. And the possibility of using the same unified solution for variants management, test management and future test automation would be a major benefit. The company found that Polarion™ software from Siemens Digital Industries Software perfectly aligned with its needs.

Polarion can assist companies with savings on adaption and maintenance costs. Siemens’ Polarion LiveDoc™ Documents provided Copreci with an easier route to transition requirements from desktop documents to an always up-to-date online environment with easy authoring coupled with automated workflow. In addition, the technology was fully adaptable to virtually any process.

Copreci is now working with a defined software lifecycle implemented in Polarion to simultaneously document and trace system requirements, software requirements, architecture, detailed design and source code, while also handling different test specifications.

Embracing future possibilities

In any gas, induction, and washing-related project, safety requirements are trackedseparately from functional requirements. In addition, source code is traced up to requirements (source code linked with requirements, architecture and detailed design of the software). All work items, including requirements, test cases, architecture and more, are easily accessible and usable in Polarion. The easy administration, customizable workflows and system configuration in Polarion have enabled Copreci to save 70 percent or more on system administration, implementation, training, integrations, annual maintenance, hardware and infrastructure costs. Polarion has also helped the company dramatically improve its process for document certification, traceability reports and deliverables to comply with the IEC 60730 safety standard for household appliances.

Variants management is also a key component to Copreci’s processes. With Polarion VARIANTS™ Add-on Software, Copreci effectively manages the growing levels of software variation in its projects.

For future projects, Copreci plans to implement Polarion for test management and automation.