Electronic Data Systems was a company whose products included a requirement traceability tool called
SLATE (System Level Automation Tool for Engineers, which was initially developed by
Texas Instruments, then owned by EDS, ultimately became
Siemsn PLM Software
.
SLATE is now known as
Teamcenter RequirementsInformation from the EDS
website:
they are currently on
version 6.0 of SLATE, which uses Tcl/Tk 8.0.5 (and TclPro).
SLATE (System Level Automation Tool for Engineers) addresses these problems by:
- Bringing requirements to everyone on a project--requirement groupware (ensuring that no one is working from stale information)
- Integrating requirements with the design (where requirements can influence design towards compliance, rather than testing/integrating compliance in later)
- Providing accurate design documentation that is a reflection of the team-captured design (changing design changes the documentation)
The result is a unique requirements management environment that not only understands requirements, but also how requirements relate to the product--allowing the requirements to directly influence everyone's design decisions towards compliance. The result is more compliant products, built on shorter schedules (fewer restarts, fewer redesigns, fewer surprises, shorter test and integration cycles, reuse opportunities, etc.) with less money.
Our customers realize requirements by themselves (or in trace matrices) do not have the power to build compliant products. Tracing tools which manage requirements outside of the development environment can not influence development decisions towards compliance. SLATE's patented relationship engine/database solves this problem by tieing requirements into the design where they can influence each design decision; what we've tagged Integrated Requirements Management/Engineering (also via the Web through our tranSLATE product family).
SLATE remains a standalone product used by many fortune 100 companies including GM, Ford, Ericsson, Lucent, Boeing, Hughes Space, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and others interested in slashing product cycle time.
MPJ, from personal experience notes that Northrop Grumman's
Electronic Systems uses this product and has a internal support group for SLATE and Tcl.
