CUSTOMER STORY
AT A GLANCE
Organization:
Enterprise Electronics
Corporation (EEC)
Web Site:
www.eecweathertech.com
Headquarters:
Enterprise, AL
Description:
EEC increased
traceability and
collaboration among
disparate teams, and
established a lifecycle
view of product
development with
TestTrack.
Global Radar Company
Realizes Better Resource
Planning and Risk
Reduction with TestTrack
Enterprise Electronics Corporation (EEC), a global
leader in Doppler technology, builds and installs
turnkey weather detecting radar systems and
satellite ground stations, in addition to offering
hardware and software solutions for collecting,
analyzing, viewing, and distributing space-based
satellite weather data.
Rock-solid test management is
mandatory when a company writes
all of its own customized software
packages for hundreds of clients.
And, when 90 percent of business
is international, as in EEC’s case,
cobbling together spreadsheets and
emails just isn’t a sustainable way to
keep developers on the same page.
As EEC’s business grew in
both breadth and depth, the
company needed to lock down
the way it managed software testing—not only to simplify the product
management process, but also because it’s critical that each radar system
is demonstrably tested to avoid a significant safety risk for people and
assets. In addition to the safety-critical nature of their products, the need
for better traceability and open collaboration among disparate teams
added to the pressure of EEC’s growing pains.
“When you’re installing national weather radar networks, there is
a large portion of work that takes place beyond the factory,” EEC
President Chris Goode said. “As we roll out complex software
programs and hardware structures, establishing and maintaining a
dialogue with everyone from the engineers to the development and
deployment teams is essential—and it wasn’t happening as effectively
or efficiently as it could have.”
“TestTrack cut our
response time from
weeks to days.”
Albert Free
Systems Engineering
Director,
Enterprise Electronics
Corporation
Calming the Storm with TestTrack
It became clear to EEC that a professional-level test and workflow
management solution was needed. EEC first tried an open source
database system to capture issues and manage workflows. The
system fell short, however; it just wasn’t capable of meeting the full
scope of EEC’s needs. As business continued to increase, the need to
centralize testing processes also grew more critical. With millions of
lines of code and multiple programmers working on each project, the
company still had no way to effectively capture, organize, assign, and
track issues in the field.
EEC discovered TestTrack, Seapine’s application lifecycle management
solution, in 2000. Simple to deploy and endlessly scalable, TestTrack
immediately fulfilled every item on EEC’s wish list. Customizability,
platform neutrality, and features like a highly-configurable workflow
engine only added to the already appealing solution.
“TestTrack cut our response time from weeks to days,” said Albert
Free, EEC’s Systems Engineering Director. “Instead of emailing
issues back and forth, TestTrack’s remote capabilities allow software
managers to log issues directly into the system, immediately initiating
the resolution process.”
TestTrack’s seamless workflow and issue tracking capabilities proved
so comprehensive that EEC soon began exploring where else
TestTrack could improve its systems. Within a few years of initial
deployment, EEC also implemented TestTrack in its customer support
department to help coordinate repairs and streamline maintenance
for between 800 and 900 active radar systems around the world.
In addition, TestTrack’s requirements management capabilities have
helped EEC implement a number of business development process
improvements, resulting in tremendous savings in time and money.
For example, every RFP has unique technical requirements that EEC
must consider in order to determine actual cost-to-build. EEC puts a
potential project’s technical requirements into TestTrack as if it was
a live development project and completes impact analysis at the RFP
stage. TestTrack allows the company to craft more accurate resource
plans before engagements even begin.
“When we bring
in customers for
training and they see
we have this kind of
system in place, it’s
beyond impressive.
TestTrack instills
confidence and
makes EEC stand out
above the rest.”
Albert Free
Systems Engineering
Director,
Enterprise Electronics
Corporation
“Using TestTrack to form our proposals gives us a modicum of risk
assessment we just didn’t have before,” Free said. “Plus, customers
these days expect to get exactly what they paid for—not an
interpretation that has gone through a bunch of people. When we
use TestTrack to win business and generate a test procedure and
deliver a requirement, we can more accurately meet expectations.”
Lifecycle Perspective Saves and Protects
TestTrack has become an indispensable part of business for EEC.
The ability to synchronize global personnel into a “closed loop”
system offers a complete lifecycle perspective on product
development—essential for systems that are built to last decades.
“With TestTrack, we can capture the entire lifecycle of our radar
systems and identify any systemic issues,” Free said. “This makes
the systems that much more accurate, and makes our clients that
much happier.”
Adoption of TestTrack has been as impressive as the results. Its
intuitive interface made it possible for team members at all levels of
EEC—from the bids and proposals teams to PhDs and engineers—to
get up and running with TestTrack from Day 1. TestTrack simply works.
The software recently proved its value again when EEC acquired a
satellite ground system business. The new subsidiary had its own set
of testing procedures and records which could have been extremely
time-consuming to incorporate. Not with TestTrack.
“The ability to take a completely separate database and import it into
TestTrack was great,” Free said. “What would have taken weeks to sort
and enter into any other system took just days instead.”
It’s not just EEC that’s been impressed with TestTrack, either. A Swedish
client recently inquired about how the company does its product
testing; Free was only too happy to walk them through the software.
The result was a true “wow” moment for EEC and their client.
“They were thrilled EEC had something in place that would capture
everything,” Free said. “When we bring in customers for training and
they see we have this kind of system in place, it’s beyond impressive.
TestTrack instills confidence and makes EEC stand out above the rest.”
About Seapine Software
With over 8,500 customers worldwide, Seapine Software, Inc. is the
leading provider of quality-centric product development solutions.
Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, with offices in Europe, Asia-Pacific,
and Africa, Seapine’s development solutions help organizations ensure
the consistent release of high quality products, while providing
traceability, metrics and reporting, and compliance.
Learn more at seapine.com.