The Eindhoven metropolitan region (MRE) aspires to further develop the Brainport region in its role as an economic world player. Therefore the MRE board strategically sets out subsidy for promising small businesses in, or near, Eindhoven. Keywords here are; collaboration, innovation, and local economic benefit. Ratio satisfied the requirements for claiming this unique subsidy by setting up an innovation partnership with TNO ESI and VDL ETG. MRE provided €50.000,- to improve the Elephant Specification Language Compiler and to provide a new visualization and analysis app.
The innovation project
The project was built upon three pillars: software development, knowledge transfer, and a pilot study. Most of the MRE funding has been used to hire compiler development expert dr. ir. A.T. Hofkamp from the Eindhoven University of Technology. Together with dr. ir. Hofkamp the Ratio team developed and implemented exciting new language features that can be found on the language enhancement proposal pages of our docs.
In addition, design experts from Koek Bv (located in Uden) were hired to bring the front-end visualizations to the next level and make them more appealing to non-expert users. With them, the Ratio team laid the foundations for web-based interactive architecture visualization and exploration application. This app will be further developed in the coming months.
Knowledge transfer
The second pilar knowledge transfer focused on how to teach the methods and usage of the tooling developed by Ratio. To do so, Ratio developed a one-day (or afternoon) workshop in which participants disassemble, model, and analyze small radio-controlled cars. This workshop has been improved in various experimental sessions at VDL ETG and TNO ESI. Now, this workshop is commercially offered to customers of Ratio such as Soltegro and the High Tech Systems Centre. By doing so Ratio aims to contribute to the build-up and distribution of Systems Engineering knowledge in the Eindhoven region. This is important to maintain the competitive edge of Eindhoven within the high-tech industry as described by the HTSM Systems engineering road map.
Pilot studies at VDL ETG and TNO ESI
The third pillar consisted of conducting pilot studies at VDL ETG and TNO ESI. At VDL ETG we looked into modeling an actual system that is being developed. At TNO ESI we looked into the possibility of integrating Ratio methods with the Daarius methodology of TNO ESI. Both pilot studies yielded interesting insights, fruitful discussions, and plenty of opportunities for future development and cooperation.
Overall, the MRE subsidy has been highly appreciated and enabled us to take the next step in our development road map.