"In our drive to find a new application development method and tools company we were looking for an approach that offered a highly structured process which gave reliable software that was efficient in terms of cost and time" Matt Hamblin Project Leader

Project History

Up until fairly recently, Landis & Gyr's expertise had been in hardware design. As Mark Lewis comments: "Five years ago 80% of our skills were focused on hardware: However, we quickly realised that the software element of our business would become more and more strategic, with the result that today 80% of our skills are software focused". Early development projects had been based on Structured Methods but with a toolset that allowed for the design specification of the system to become out of step with the subsequent coding of that same system.

Evaluating Methods

Matt Hamblin set about the pilot evaluation of available methods. "We needed a method that supported object orientation and real-time applications. The key goal was to find a rigorous method that enforced consistency between the design of the system and the code generated from that design. From my research and from talking with other experts, the executable object modelling approach came up time and time again."

Selecting integrated modelling tools

A number of alternative suppliers were short-listed and were invited to give Landis & Gyr a thorough demonstration of their capabilities. Products ranged from simple diagramming packages to full blown Modelling tools that were strong in simulation. Overall, across the key criteria, Kennedy Carter were clear winners, as Matt Hamblin explains: "Kennedy Carter was a much better model builder than any of the other toolsets which we evaluated, and the tools were built for use with the method. We also felt that Kennedy Carter could offer us a much better package of training, support and consultancy. This was critical for us."