I-Logix' Statemate MAGNUM Drives GM Development Of Body Control Systems

FOR RELEASE: August 22, 2001

I-Logix' Statemate MAGNUM Drives General Motors Development Of Body Control Systems

GM Realizes Improved Quality and Faster Time to Market With I-Logix' Systems Design Tool

ANDOVER, Mass. - I-Logix Inc. today detailed how General Motors, the world's largest vehicle manufacturer, is leveraging I-Logix' Statemate MAGNUMtm globally to realize a faster time to market and improved quality with innovative products. GM's North American Product Engineering department is using Statemate MAGNUM to develop specifications for software in core vehicle functions, which include all the body electrical functions. Since the Electrical Organization within GM began using Statemate MAGNUM, they have reported that they are delivering new features to market faster and at lower cost through increased collaboration with the company's external suppliers.

GM engineers are using Statemate MAGNUM to capture requirements, develop system models and produce executable specifications of system and software functionality, enabling improved communication with the company's external suppliers. This allows the suppliers to "test drive" specifications before writing any software, thereby eliminating ambiguity common with textural specifications and improving communications, resulting in reduced time to market. In addition, GM's engineers are working to share designs between development teams. Because specifications created with Statemate MAGNUM are clear, complete, and correct, they can easily be reused, fostering standardization and increased collaboration among GM's internal departments, and providing added time to market savings.

"Since GM began using I-Logix' Statemate MAGNUM, our suppliers have been delivering higher-quality code from the specifications, that are often accurate on the first try," said Carol Johnson, engineering group manager, General Motors. "Using this tool, systems design teams are able to discuss actual models at a greater depth with our suppliers, which reduces the number of software iterations and eliminates any hardware iterations. Most importantly, we're now able to efficiently specify distributed body control systems -across multiple electronic control units from numerous suppliers - within a single car.

In addition, we're looking forward to leveraging the automated testing and code generation capabilities provided by I-Logix to complete the tool chain with our suppliers."

I-Logix' Statemate MAGNUM is the most comprehensive system engineering environment for complex systems specification, validation and rapid prototyping available. It provides a direct and formal link between user requirements and software implementation by allowing the user to create a complete, executable specification. Statemate MAGNUM 3.0, announced in May of this year, adds UMLtm compliant Sequence Diagram functionality to allow engineers to easily capture and simulate system scenarios and create test vectors for downstream testing on prototypes and the actual system.

It also adds model checking, a breakthrough technology that leverages formal verification to mathematically prove that a system designed with Statemate MAGNUM exactly meets the requirements defined for that system.