Overview HORIBA is a leading supplier in the fields of engine test systems, driveline test systems; brake test systems; wind tunnel balances; and emissions test systems. STARS is the latest generation automation system from HORIBA Test Automation, combining the application ex-pertise of many years. STARS provides all the features you need to run a wide range of test programmes from simple manual testing to dy-namic automatic tests all from a single, simple to use user interface.

Challenge STARS is a complex product, including real-time elements, graphical components, and database integration. It is in use by several hundred cus-tomers, around the globe. New releases are is-sued annually, with hot-fix releases every other month, as well as patch releases throughout the year, either included in an upcoming hot-fix or issued individually when necessary.

Recent company growth has put pressure onto the development effort and processes, as Ben Squires, Development Manager, explains: “We felt an agile development approach would fit our growing demand and chose the SCRUM methodology. This allows us to implement a more scalable development model with local team empowerment. Our development team consists of 50 colleagues distributed over 10 geographical locations, including the USA, Japan, and Europe. To ensure everyone works towards a common goal, we needed a central tool to support this process.”

SolutionSquires had used Micro Focus® StarTeam since the late 1990s, to manage change throughout the software development lifecycle. When his company joined the HORIBA family he was keen to continue using it to support develop-ment efforts. One of the HORIBA business units used IBM ClearCase and, for a while, StarTeam and ClearCase were deployed in dif ferent parts of the organisation to manage source code. The ClearCase model required that a local copy of the source code was kept. Changes were then implemented in an over-night, manual, code merge operation. The tool performed badly and it wasn’t the centralised solution Squires was looking for.

He comments: “We needed a tool to control our source code, but we also wanted a change request management tool. StarTeam already performed this function for us very well. A com-munity of over 200 people, both internal and

HORIBA Test AutomationStarTeam® Agile supports agile development process to deliver on time and provide increased visibility.

At a Glance

Industry

Software & Technology

Location

UK

Challenge

Recent company growth has put pressure onto the development effort and processes, and HORIBA wanted to implement a more scalable development model with local team empowerment. To ensure everyone works towards a common goal, it needed a central tool to support this process.

Solution

Micro Focus StarTeam and StarTeam Agile were deployed to control source code and manage change requests. This supports an agile development process which manages development resources across the globe.

Results

+ Improved time-to-market+ Increased development team collaboration+ Scalable solution allowing for future growth+ Increased visibility and management reporting

Customer Success StoryStarTeamStarTeam Agile

“With the increased pressure on a fast-growing team, we couldn’t have executed the volume of development work which we have done in recent years without StarTeam and StarTeam Agile.”

BEN SQUIRESDevelopment ManagerHORIBA Test Automation

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from our resellers, access StarTeam to enter change requests directly into the tool. These are then reviewed and prioritised by us, and scheduled for implementation. We soon phased out ClearCase and moved ahead with StarTeam as our enterprise-wide solution.”

To support the new agile development method-ology, StarTeam Agile was introduced as well. StarTeam Agile provides support for SCRUM-based sprint planning, backlog management, and tracking. Its planning and management capability is ideal for HORIBA’s distributed de-velopment organisations, responding to highly complex needs. The tight integration with Star-Team makes it an effective agile change man-agement solution.

Squires comments: “StarTeam continues to cap-ture our change requests, including defects and enhancement suggestions, at the front-end, and the development effort is then managed through StarTeam Agile. It helps us prioritise activities and produces a granular list which all development teams work against. This gives us full control and visibility across the software delivery lifecycle”

Traceability is key for HORIBA and every soft-ware release is labelled for audit purposes. On the rare occasion that a code roll-back is

needed, this is easily done, following a docu-mented process.

ResultsThe implementation of StarTeam and StarTeam Agile has allowed HORIBA to fully manage its software releases, as Squires says: “With the increased pressure on a fast-growing team, we couldn’t have executed the volume of develop-ment work which we have done in recent years without StarTeam and StarTeam Agile. It has given us top-level visibility which means we de-liver on time, a big business benefit for us. Our agile development process is seamlessly sup-ported and we receive very positive feedback from our team members on the added value of StarTeam Agile.”

HORIBA wants to introduce further automation into the process and is looking at Micro Focus Atlas™ to deliver structured agile requirement management, to bring business and develop-ment teams closer together.

Squires concludes: “We were the first UK Star-Team Agile customer for Micro Focus. This resulted in an effective collaboration with the Micro Focus R&D teams and we were able to help shape the product as it is now. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the implementation of Atlas.”

“StarTeam captures our change requests, including defects and enhancement suggestions, at the front-end, and the development effort is then managed through StarTeam

Agile. It helps us prioritise activities and produces a granular list which all development teams work against.”

BEN SQUIRESDevelopment Manager

HORIBA Test Automation

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