Requirements management is pivotal in orchestrating complex engineering projects. The market is replete with tools that streamline this process, among which Valispace and Codebeamer are prominent contenders. Each comes with its unique set of features and caters to different needs. This article presents a technical comparison between Valispace and Codebeamer to facilitate your decision-making process.
Overview
Valispace is a browser-based software platform purpose-built for managing, developing, and tracking project data for hardware engineering projects. Its collaborative real-time environment is ideal for aerospace, defense, automotive, and robotics industries.
One unique feature in the tool is the possibility to use an AI assistant (ValiAssisant) that will help you in your requirements engineering, by assisting you in generating requirements from scratch, breaking them down into lower-level ones or even find inconsistencies among them.
Another standout feature in the tool is the ability to conduct cross-disciplinary calculations, minimize error-prone manual data transfer, and improve overall efficiency.
Codebeamer is a comprehensive Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tool offering robust requirements management capabilities. It is designed to handle complex projects across automotive, medical technology, and aviation industries. Codebeamer places emphasis on traceability, collaboration, and compliance with industry-specific standards.
Requirements Management
Valispace’s approach to requirements management is tied closely to its system engineering approach. It allows engineers to link requirements directly to relevant components or system data, enabling real-time calculations of parameters and automatic propagation of changes.
The requirements are written in a parametric format, automatically linking them to the underlying components. Another plus offered by Valispace, is the possibility to have an AI assistant to help you with your requirements.
Powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, ValiAssistant can help you in generating, improving, breaking down and even finding inconsistencies among your requirements.
Codebeamer, on the other hand, provides a robust requirements management system suitable for handling complex projects with numerous interconnected elements. Its features include full traceability, versioning, and baselining.
In addition to these, Codebeamer supports the management of dependencies, risks, and changes. Its visual traceability feature can map out dependencies, helping teams understand the impact of changes.
Collaboration and Integration
Valispace supports real-time collaboration with a robust commenting feature for facilitating project-level discussions. Tasks and timelines are also some features present in the tool to ensure full collaboration and traceability. Its integration capabilities include MATLAB, Excel, JIRA, and it supports exporting data in multiple formats. Valispace also offers a REST API for custom integrations, providing JSON formatted responses for easy parsing and manipulation.
Codebeamer supports team collaboration with features like reviews, discussions, and notifications. It integrates with various tools like JIRA, Jenkins, and more. Codebeamer provides REST and Swagger APIs for custom integrations and supports import/export in numerous formats.
Using Codebeamer and Valispace for a Comprehensive Engineering Solution
Codebeamer and Valispace have unique core strengths that can also be combined to form a comprehensive engineering management solution.
Valispace, with its strong focus on real-time calculation of engineering data and parameter management, could be primarily used for detailed technical analysis. Its automatically updating linked requirements based on parameter changes ensures error minimization and efficient workflow.
Meanwhile, Codebeamer, known for its comprehensive Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) capabilities, could be employed for a broader project management scope. Its robust traceability features and compliance with industry-specific standards make it ideal for handling complex, cross-functional projects.
A protocol for regular data synchronization would need to be established to integrate the systems. This could involve periodic data import and export or leveraging each tool’s APIs for automated data transfer.
While combining these tools broadens the feature availability, careful data management is necessary to ensure consistency. This dual-tool approach aims to capitalize on each tool’s unique strengths, offering an all-encompassing solution for complex engineering projects.
Conclusion
Choosing between Valispace and Codebeamer largely depends on the specific needs of your project. Valispace is a more modern and hardware-centric tool that focuses on engineering data and real-time calculations, and can provide a significant efficiency boost if your team is specifically dealing with complex hardware systems.
On the other hand, Codebeamer, with its comprehensive ALM features and requirements management capabilities, is ideal for projects where traceability and compliance are needed.
Ultimately, the right tool will depend on your project scope, team structure, and workflow requirements. Both Valispace and Codebeamer offer compelling features that can significantly enhance your project’s success.