FEATURE AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS
STAYING AHEAD OF THE GAME
Software has a long history but the same principles are being applied to building and sharing design data for example to be used with 3-D printers. Various consortia are proposing standards for integration and platforms on which 3rd parties can build. While the ultimate, standardised platform is not yet clear; the Open Automotive Alliance is trying to create an open architecture for many manufacturers and vendors to share. Open source is also making its way into the
Mark Warren, European Marketing Director at Perforce Software, investigates the criticality of embracing innovative software in automotive design processes and why a review of processes and tools is needed, to keep up with industry advances
T
he automotive industry is probably in the middle of the greatest period of
change it has ever seen. Even economy class vehicles are frequently kitted out as standard with sophisticated features, typically powered by increasingly advanced electronics. We can expect “smart” systems such as collision avoidance to become mainstream and mass-market self-driving cars probably aren’t that far away. While this is great news for consumers it
is both an opportunity and risk for manufacturers; being first to market with new technology can be a competitive differentiator, but the rapid pace of change introduces increased complexity in design and development projects. Then of course there is the financial pressure car manufacturers are under and, finally, there are regulatory requirements, with increasing adoption of standards such as ISO 26262, which requires rigorous management and traceability of changes. With this “nexus” of forces at play, it is time for automotive electronics designers to re-evaluate their processes and tools to ensure they are fit for purpose and able to handle future demands. Lessons can be learned from industries
with similar challenges. In particular, adopting ‘agile’ development methods has significantly accelerated development of a broad range of software products (interestingly, many agile concepts started life as lessons learned from ‘just in time’ and Kanban car manufacturing processes). A natural extension of agile is the adoption
18 OCTOBER 2014 | ELECTRONICS
of ‘Continuous Integration’ (CI), which is about building and testing software products more regularly – even for every change – to find out as early as possible if anything is ‘broken’. Beyond that, we’re seeing rapid adoption of ‘Continuous Delivery’ (CD), which involves delivering products as soon as they are releasable, with the caveat that they will continue to evolve in tune with internal and external forces (in other words, incremental development, as opposed to waiting for the next big release to introduce new features). According to Evans Data research, around two thirds of organisations in the UK and US are already adopting CD to at least some extent. Although it may sound fanciful to “continuously deliver” new cars in this way, there are many systems and components in the modern vehicle that can benefit; for example updating In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI) systems to add a new music streaming service or refreshed map data. These changes happen frequently, much more often than models are updated.
Another key trend is for more openness in the software development process or physical manufacturing. Open Source
Figure 1:
Modern design tools are becoming increasingly flexible with the ability to deliver faster
generational evolutions straight to market
tools being used in design and development offices; for instance, increased use of Git for distributed version control is starting to appear. While Git provides a great developer experience and supports agile methods it is weak in enterprise-readiness and being able to handle the wide variety of digital assets required for hardware or modern software development. This leads on to the final point: the right tools. Many automotive design and programming teams are using big, heavy and inflexible tools that originally began life as general manufacturing systems more suitable for numerically-controlled cutters than modern software development. Take a look at all the elements in the ‘product’ - hardware, software, board layouts, documentation, graphics and so on – and then consider the tools used to build each of them. If they haven’t had significant changes in the past five years, then they are unlikely to be modern or flexible enough to support modern development environments. For instance, if it is not possible to store all assets in a single repository, then that increases costs, while potentially decreasing control and compliance. A ‘single source of truth’ is a critical asset. Automation is important. A key attribute of
CD is reduced dependency on human beings (and thus, human error). Repetitive tasks engender mistakes, while reliance on a single ‘hero’ person is just plain dangerous. Modern tools help automate compliance testing and simulators provide high fidelity emulation, reducing the need for physical prototypes. While it may seem counter-intuitive to
“Open source is also
making its way into the tools being used in design and development offices; for instance, increased use of Git for distributed version control is starting to appear....”
replace an existing version control system if risk is a concern, in fact it might be the simplest and most cost effective first step to take. Migration from legacy systems into modern version control systems is a well- trodden path and can provide rapid ROI, as well as being designed to support agile processes and CD.
Never has there been such an opportunity for change and a hunger in the market for innovation. However, with this change comes a need to evolve and re-think of processes and tools and could be critical for success in the fast lane.
Perforce Software
www.perforce.com 0845 345 0116
Enter 209 / ELECTRONICS
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