IBM optimizes product development with IBM Rational ClearQuest

Challenge

IBM Systems and Technology Group needed a solution to coordinate hardware and software development teams.

Solution
The Systems and Technology Group team used IBM® Rational® ClearQuest® software to improve efficiencies and reduce development costs.

Key benefits
· Increases systems development processes and program management efficiency
· Reduces development and warranty costs and increases parts reuse
· Virtually eliminates abandoned projects

International Business Machines (IBM) is one of the world’s largest technology services providers. Headquartered in Armonk, New York, IBM employs roughly 400,000 people worldwide. IBM posted sales of more than US$100 billion in 2009, holds more patents than any other U.S.-based technology company and has eight research laboratories worldwide. The company has scientists, engineers, consultants and sales professionals in more than 200 countries. IBM Systems and Technology Group is a division of IBM.

Managing configurations and changes with siloed tools
The IBM Systems and Technology Group team faced a difficult engineering project—create a chip with a converged layer of firmware that would work across multiple brands. From the onset of the project, the team was challenged to coordinate the hardware and software teams that were each using disparate toolsets for change request tracking, source control, and other critical development and engineering areas. Managing the project efficiently was becoming an impossibility. Program managers, for example, needed to merge change requests from multiple groups into a single set. By the time this labor-intensive task was completed, the changes were out of date.

Supporting product development with IBM Rational ClearQuest
The Systems and Technology Group team deployed IBM Rational ClearQuest software to address the challenges of siloed hardware and software tools and to coordinate the two development teams. Rational ClearQuest provides a common tool allowing a highly configurable common schema, which enabled the creation of more efficient processes, which in turn led to dramatic cost savings. Rational ClearQuest software was integrated with the team’s existing design and software development tools and allows an efficient process flow across the development life cycle.

Improving efficiency with change management and common configuration
The solution has been roundly embraced by both the hardware and software development teams. In fact, to everyone’s surprise, the hardware developers have become the largest user base for Rational ClearQuest software. And now the supply chain group has asked for its change request tracking to converge with Rational ClearQuest software. The solution has led to a significant reduction in development costs, including an increase in parts reuse and a reduction in warranty costs. The development process is now much more efficient, and the practice of abandoning projects has been practically eliminated. To date more than 25,000 engineers and developers at 35 labs in 17 countries have embraced IBM Rational ClearQuest software.

For more information
To learn more about IBM Rational ClearQuest software, please contact your local IBM sales representative or visit:ibm.com/software/awdtools/clearquest

“IBM Rational ClearQuest has proven so effective that it is currently being used by 25,000 engineers and programmers at 35 labs in 17 countries.”
—IBM Systems and Technology Group