Aerospace and Defense: improve quality and safety through complex products development

A highly competitive and regulated industry

This major industry is subject to very strict and highly technical regulations.
One of the main challenge for the organizations operating in this sector is to ensure the safety of aerospace software, in order to prevent accidents: for instance, to be fully compliant, companies have to meet the DO-178 standard.

• The DO-178B standard is an international standard used for guidance related to Equipment Certification and software consideration within airborne systems. Precisely, it is used to meet some critical requirements of the safety regulation related to the integration of Aircraft Systems Software.

Towards a modernization of processes with manufacturing digitalization

To ensure safety and efficiency of many core activities such as communications, navigations and surveillance of air traffic management, today Aerospace Systems depend on software more than ever before. This is why manufacturing has started to digitize for a few years now. So, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) have no choice but continue to modernize, if they want to keep up with change and avoid falling behind competition as digital transformation accelerates.

Plus, modernizing processes allows companies to benefit – amongst others – from the reduction of manufacturing delays which can be a very good asset.

1. Agile methods and Compliance

By implementing agile methodologies, organizations can better adapt to the increased volatility while still being profitable. The ultimate goal of the agility is to transform product development, enhancing it. This way companies will benefit from all the advantages of a more customer-centric approach, empowered teams, increased responsiveness to both market needs and (standard) requirements and faster development cycles.

• Better collaboration among cross-functional teams,
• Shorter iterations and more adaptive scheduling,
• Reduced product time-to-market,
• Cost-effective developments,
• High-quality products meeting customers’ needs
• Stable software products complying with industry standards.

2. End-to-end traceability to facilitate audits

To limit your exposure to regulatory risks, such as non-conformity ones, you’ll need a traceable record or log which can ensure that you’re fully compliant.
For this, Tuleap offers a large set of integrated solutions to provide gap-free traceability throughout the whole software development lifecycle.

• Link, organize, and manage any items to gather all required evidence in one single digital place,
• Track changes on any aerospace and defense project artifacts and components across the supply chain,
• Monitor any developments as well as all the other activities related to design, engineering, delivery, and service cycles as to achieve 100% traceability,
• Save time and money for audit purposes thanks to a fast, easy access to product history.

3. Requirement and Risk Management

To back you up with risk management, Tuleap integrates an Issue Tracking™ module to help you design and set up a flexible, highly customizable and sophisticated system to meet your business needs and requirements:

• Assess risks systematically and define specific risk mitigation strategies,
• Achieve and ensure “acceptable” levels of risk,
• Create unique automated requirements approval and validation processes,
• Develop test cases based on specifications.

4. Quality Assurance and Testing

Ensuring software quality, stability and reliability is absolutely key within the aerospace and defense industry.

• Speed up product testing and validation by using the Tuleap Test Management™ module,
• Manage automated and manual tests together within an all-in-one tool,
• Launch, monitor, and analyze test campaigns in real time using a single Tuleap interface,
• Track and manage all quality assurance activities for your aerospace and defense software products, from requirements to release.

5. Quality Management System (QMS) and Workflows Automation

Therefore, the Tuleap Issue Tracking™ module can be totally adapted to your development and quality management policies:

• Implement automated workflows throughout the software product development process thanks to advanced conditions and triggers,
• Define and manage access permissions to any confidential information and project through a sophisticated system of authentication,
• Build business templates to standardize tested and validated processes and cut down on errors.

6. Aerospace and Defense Document Management

Tuleap also provides you with an integrated Document Manager™ module to centralize and secure any information.

• Collect, organize and collaborate on documents while ensuring the tracking any changes,
• Prevent the use of obsolete documents and ensure error-free archiving,
• Approve and share quality-related documentation both internally and externally (e.g. for compliance audits purposes),
• Thanks to Tuleap DocGen™ plugin, automatically generate requirements specification documents in a few seconds and (e.g. export any Test Plan information to an external Word document),
• Obtain a Traceability Matrix to prove your delivered products’ quality and compliance with industry standards, at any moment.