SPS Europe GmbH successfully launched a new product series in a very short time with the support of our partner, OMNI Inform-Pro GmbH from Munich, and the use of our requirements management tool ReqSuite® – A Success Story
Note: This article was initially written by OMNI Inform-Pro and first appeared on their blog site. In the version of the article printed here, only “we” has been replaced by “OMNI Inform-Pro”.
About SPS-Europe GmbH
SPS-Europe GmbH has been providing quality products and services for over 30 years. SPS-Europe GmbH is the one-stop shop for manufacturers of front-end semiconductors and related industries. SPS-Europe GmbH is located in Ingolstadt, Germany.
Within 3-6 months SPS-Europe GmbH aims to produce and distribute a market-ready, directive and standard compliant inline heater product series.
The goal of SPS-Europe GmbH to bring a new inline heater series to market in the shortest possible time was very ambitious. A multitude of standards, guidelines and other tasks had to be considered. With the extreme amount of requirements that resulted from the various standards and directives, such as:
- the Low Voltage Directive (2014/35/EU)
- the RoHS (2011/65/EU)
- the REACH (EC No 1907/2006 )
- the safety of machinery/risk assessment standard (EN ISO 12100:2010)
to name but a few, it was easy to lose the overview and get bogged down quite quickly. The project manager was faced with a huge mountain of challenges. Not only the requirements from the various standards and guidelines had to be implemented, but also the structures in the following areas had to be set up and established:
- Sales
- Quality assurance
- Production
- Processes
Solution
Together with the project manager of SPS Europe GmbH, the colleagues from OMNI Inform-Pro set out on a mountain tour and had ReqSuite® in their luggage as support. So they were well equipped to cope with the mountain of requirements and could start to climb it bit by bit.
OMNI Inform-Pro started to record the requirements in ReqSuite® and to write the solutions. In this way, OMNI Inform-Pro was able to structure the rather complex project very well and were able to work through the requirements in a very efficient and agile manner. In weekly jour fixes with the project manager of SPS-Europe GmbH, we used the requirements management tool to discuss the current status of the project. What has already been done, or which tasks still need to be worked on and who is responsible for them. All stakeholders involved were always up to date and knew which steps had to be implemented next in order to conquer the mountain.
Furthermore, this ensured that all requirements were taken into account and no task was overlooked. Finally, test cases were used to verify that all requirements had been completed and that a safe, directive- and standard-compliant product could be brought to market. The test cases also served as quality assurance. Thus, the V-model could be integrated and mapped in the ReqSuite®. Verification and validation could also be carried out in ReqSuite®.
OMNI Inform-Pro was getting closer and closer to its goal, the summit, and in the end it was a very good feeling to have reached the top and to have conquered the mountain of requirements. With the help of ReqSuite® it was possible to ensure that despite the rather high complexity of the project, a very good structure could be maintained and thus the project remained very clear.
Results
Within 6 months, an initial idea was turned into a production-ready rollout for the inline heater series. This result was possible thanks to the continuous and very close exchange between the project manager and the management with OMNI Infom-Pro and thanks to the support of the requirements management tool ReqSuite®.
Quote from SPS (Cornelia Loos): “Due to the complexity of the many requirements, standards, guidelines, and processes to be established that were necessary for our product launch, ReqSuite® provided us with significant support in project management. Thanks to ReqSuite®, we were able to work agilely and structure our project perfectly. Since it is a very user-friendly software, you can quickly work with it after a short training period and record your first successes.”
