Realisation
Consulting
We assist you with the planning and realisation
of your development projects in various areas.
for various areas
Years of experience
in Automotive and Knowledge Management
Benefit from longstanding management experience in development sectors for embedded systems and mechatronics within the automotive and industrial environment.
Automotive Management
Our experts in the field of automotive management will help you with aligning your processes, tools and structures strategically to the current market requirements in the embedded sector.
The significance and complexity of embedded software organisations is steadily increasing and as a consequence, a regular adjustment of processes, tools and organisations becomes necessary. Hence, we are happy to assist you in meeting new challenges in the following disciplines:
- interim management
- organisation development
- process development
- functional safety
- quality assurance
Profit from our longstanding experience in the field of automotive software management.
Interim Management in the Automotive Environment
Our experts take over the interim management of your embedded software department, preferably within the automotive sector. We can rely on long-time experience from the automotive powertrain (transmission, combustion engines, hybrid, e-mobility, inductive charging, OBC). Moreover, our experts are also familiar with the normative standards of Automotive SPICE ®, ISO 26262 and MISRA as well as with the common software tools.
Organisation Development
You want to build or restructure a software department or a software product line? We assist you with the optimal adjustment to the requirements of the projects. We coordinate the organisation and the division of roles within the team such that the best possible products can be developed, following Conway’s Law. Additionally, we focus on the employees’ further education.
We work on your processes to further develop them profitably and ensure smooth communication. Thereby, we focus on the following disciplines:
- Retention of professional resources – development and implementation of a knowledge management
- Development processes – process landscape in the automotive environment in accordance with common process models (Automotive SPICE®, CMMI)
- Safety – functional safety in accordance with ISO 26262
In this context, we can rely on our know-how in the development sector of OEM and Tier1 projects. In particular, you can benefit from our expertise in the following two fields:
- Higher level processes in ECU development from defining variants over type approval to end-of-line programming
- System and software development in accordance with Automotive SPICE®
Recording and Modelling of Processes in the Automotive Environment
We record the current processes via expert talks and model these with common BPMN tools. During this step, we identify optimisation potentials and describe them.
In order to define goal-oriented processes which support your organisation in the best possible way, we carry out workshops and record the results. These will then form a basis for the modelling of the goal-oriented processes.
Support/Assistance of the Rollout
Altered processes require a professional change management. Therefore, we offer support for this critical step by providing respective documentation and learning materials. Moreover, there is the possibility to work with e-learnings and videos to promote this rollout.
When implementing measures for functional safety in accordance with ISO 26262, we support you from the planning stages to the actual implementation with a particular focus on software development:
- Hazard and risk analysis
- Safety plan and safety case
- Implementation in accordance with the standards
We undertake the quality assurance in your projects, where we focus on the standards Automotive SPICE® (development of embedded systems in the automotive environment), ISO 9001 (basic quality management) and IATF 16949 (quality management in automotive projects).
Knowledge Management
Our expertise on further education, learning organisations and knowledge management to assist the personnel development within the embedded sector rounds off our consulting portfolio.
With our help, you can make sure that your employees are always up-to-date in their profession and can participate in the technological future of your company.
Our team, which has already worked with a broad range of tools in the context of different organisations, supports your HR organisation with the development of training concepts tailored to your needs. This way, you can benefit from our holistic approach which includes requirements analysis and strategy development up to the realisation of specific education possibilities.
Why Should You Seek Some Advice on Further Education in the Field of Embedded Systems?
The interdisciplinary technology embedded systems is growing yearly with about 10% due to future technologies such as autonomous driving, networked production and decentralised energy supply. This means it is growing faster than most fields in traditional mechanical engineering, the automotive industry, medicine technology and the energy sector. With this strong growth and the resulting innovations, also the need for further education is growing:
- The employee base has to be given a chance to be continuously up-to-date.
- Usually new employees are not trained in an interdisciplinary technology and thus, there is a need to fill in any gaps which might exist due to different curricula during their studies.
- The tools available in the development of embedded systems are very diverse and therefore also experienced developers can only be familiar with a handful of them. When changing occupations, even within the same company, there is a need for training in the new tool chain.
Our Consulting Portfolio in the Education Sector for Embedded Systems
Based on your products, your agreed set of standards and the tools you use, we analyse the knowledge requirements within your organisation. In this context, we have to look at different topics with a varying depth:
Topic 1: The Product Controls the Knowledge Requirements
Different products require different technical knowledge: An embedded system is always used to operate a dedicated functionality. Consequently, some expert knowledge on the product is indispensable, which is usually primarily focused on the electronics, namely the logical and timing behaviour. The knowledge base necessary to promote your product development has to be determined based on the product specifications. This also includes reflecting on whether a new approach or direction might be helpful.
Topic 2: The Basics Have to Be Solid
Since embedded systems are an interdisciplinary technology, a traditional course of study usually does not fully provide the qualifications necessary for embedded system development. Hence, it can be highly convenient to have a knowledge base for key qualifications which could be used to prepare graduates purposefully for their future tasks within the company.
Topic 3: Efficiency Also Comes With “Soft” Knowledge
Knowledge can not only be measured with hard facts. The question is which “soft” knowledge your employees should have to harmonize with the organisation? Are there any standards your employees need to be at least basically familiar with or certain methods which can be used for the documentation of work results for instance? “Soft” knowledge can increase the productivity immensely and can be promoted just the same as technical know-how.
Topic 4: Arriving in the Work Environment – Tools in the Embedded Development
The number of development tools is vast – some tools are more easily learned while others are so complex that only a target-oriented training allows efficient and purposeful work. Hence it is important to make sure that employees do not get lost in the toolchain.
In the embedded system sector, some job profiles have taken root such as AUTOSAR basic software developer, function developer and software tester. Depending on these standardized profiles or job descriptions within your organisation, we compose some educational training track and establish role profiles.
Further Education Processes for Specialised Further Training in the Embedded System Sector
We offer assistance with the planning and realisation of employee training processes. Hereby, we focus in particular on maintaining a close connection between HR development, modern knowledge management and technical innovation.
Training Offers by the Embedded Academy
With the Embedded Academy, we can offer you a broad range of technical seminars in the field of embedded systems.
If several employees should be trained in the same topic, a web-based training in the form of e-learnings, videos and quizzes can promote the learning success. You can benefit from:
- Didactic preparation of expert knowledge via domain expertise and teacher training
- Conception of modular learning units
- Design concepts (colour, symbols and layout) by trained designers
- Professional authoring tools such as Articulate Storyline
We develop for you
in the areas of embedded software and electrical charging
You need capacities on different levels in your embedded software organization at short notice? We support you on the management level as well as in the technical implementation.
Embedded Software
You are in short-term need of capacities on different levels within your embedded software organisation? We offer support both on the management level and within technical implementation. Moreover, we can not only rely on our own resources but also on the cooperation in the Embedded4You network, which combines extensive expertise and experience with all common software tools. We offer:
- Requirement development
- Function development and simulation
- Embedded C software development
- Software testing
We support you with gaining clarity about customer requests and converting them conceptionally and technologically effectively into product features. We are your partner in the following areas:
• System development – structuring of complex systems
• Reduction and specification of requirements on different levels
• Traceability of requirements
• New products – QFD method for defining customer request, market requirements and product features
Analysis of the Technical Problem
In discussions, we define the exact problem and make sure to distance it from other parts of the system. Further on, the work procedure and the interfaces of the system are analysed together to define target-oriented measures based on both of them.
Implementation of the Functions
With modelling tools such as Scilab or MATLAB Simulink we specify the functions and implement them. To model and optimise your functionalities, we use:
- Control engineering elements such as PIDT1 with anti-windup and feed forward
- Filters such as highpass and lowpass filters, but also Butterworth filters and simple timers
- Interpolation routines to optimally process non-linear input variables
Based on existing architectures and roughly described functionalities we develop optimised embedded C software. For this, we combine our software expertise with technical knowledge and experience from automotive and industrial projects.
Development of Embedded Software in Projects
If you need embedded software components for your products, we are happy to develop embedded C software at your request and assist you with the implementation – in Regensburg or at your building site.
Software Optimisation with the EC-LIB®
If you want to optimise your already existing software by using the EC-LIB®, the embedded C fixed point arithmetic library, and perform a refactoring, our software team supports you with revising your original software. → More information on the EC-LIB®
Software Testing
We test your embedded software components. For this, we use practical experience but also formal qualifications such as the ISTQB® Certified Tester and Agile Tester. We have expertise in software testing in the following areas:
- Software unit tests with TESSY
- Embedded debugging and testing with the iSYSTEM toolchain including winIDEA and testIDEA
- Code review and static code analysis, e.g. with PC-Lint
- Support for the whole range of software tests with experience, personnel, further education, test setups and the respective test tools together with our partner companies from Embedded4You
To help you solve your challenges, we can also rely on a broad network of partner companies. The partner companies from Embedded4You can be divided into different clusters with the following focuses:
- Modeling4You: Model based development with different tools
- Implementation4You: Implementation of embedded software and hardware solutions
- Testing4You: Software and system testing
- Safety&Security4You: Support of customers with the implementation of security solutions
EV Charging
For the topic of electric vehicle charging and concerning our product EC-CHARGE©, we offer extensive development support for hardware, software and testing.
Click here to get more information on EC-CHARGE© and the development of individual charge control systems based on this product.
Our Consulting Portfolio for Charging Systems
Our consultants can look back on 10 years of consulting experience in the field of charging systems, having worked on both the car and charging station sides.
We are happy to develop concepts and describe the system requirements in detail for you.
As a specialist for embedded systems with a profound knowledge on software development in different programming languages, we are able to assist you with the integration into your IT systems as well as with the implementation of further software functionalities.
An implementation of further software packages is possible in C, C++, Java and Qt5 for instance.
We develop the required test processes for the charging interface of e-vehicles. These test processes follow ISO 17409 for vehicle safety.
To carry out bench tests for charging technology including HV, we have access to a fully equipped HV laboratory with dSpace systems at a partner company.
We test communication and security mechanisms of charging stations – either at your site or in our or our partners’ premises.
Of course, it is also possible to develop tests for all charging components of your preferred test systems.