13:45 - 14:20  Paper 5

A practical solution to concurrent product development

Brahm Van Niekerk, Principal Product Consultant, Perforce

Arguably the greatest challenge of producing embedded systems is ensuring that the work of each engineer on each component is visible to everyone else on the project. This complexity is compounded by the use of different management tools for handling software and hardware. Add in the global distribution of engineering teams and the effects on release cycles becomes apparent.
With the careful application of readily-available processes and tools, this presentation will demonstrate that it is now possible to have true concurrent development of embedded systems based on a single repository supporting all contributors to the project, regardless of location.
The result is  improved visibility between interconnected teams leading to a reduced mean time between releases. Brahm van Niekerk, Principal Product Consultant, Perforce Software. Brahm advises organisations on development processes and the application of Software Configuration Management (SCM). Previously Brahm ran his own Software Design & Production company for 15 years.  In latter years he moved to consultancy and assisted larger organisations in adjusting both their architecture and process to gain better productivity.  Having seen the results of these on a one-on-one basis gives him an applied perspective to process, architecture and development.