Next time you’re at a live concert, a theater performance or a sports arena being blown away by the sound system, stop for a moment to notice the speakers. There’s a good chance you’re experiencing the quality of a d&b audiotechnik system.
From its first facilities in a garage in the German village of Korb to a global company now with offices and partners across 5 continents, d&b has been designing and manufacturing premium loudspeaker systems since 1981. There’s a skill in producing high quality sound in an auditorium and designing a sound system that creates the illusion that there is no amplification; that the sound is originating from the performers on stage or in the orchestra. With d&b, they bring this illusion to reality.
From the Tamba Symphony Hall in Japan to the Badminton Theatre in Athens, to Disneyland, sports venues and modern hotels like the Omm Hotel in Barcelona, d&b has been providing extraordinary sound through their innovative speakers to people all around the world.
At Jama, we’re excited to welcome d&b to our customer community. Recently we had the opportunity to speak with Claus Renftle, a development manager at d&b and ask him a few questions about their requirements management process and reasons for selecting Contour.
What are the goals of the products you’re managing within Contour? Tell us a little bit about what your team is building.
The goal of our product is to spread good acoustic sound over the enthusiastic audience, for the background on d&b’s approach, see democracyforlisteners.com for more information.
The first product being managed within Contour is our next generation audio power controller-amplifier. It’s a typical embedded system of medium to large complexity which involving several microcontrollers and signal processors, a graphics display, network interfaces and of course a lot of power electronics.
What development process do you use?
For the complete unit including software, hardware and system you might describe our process as a combination of V-model with smaller iterative loops.
What’s the biggest challenge you and your team face in managing requirements?
- Collecting all the relevant data, specifications (technical requirements), needs (user requirements) into one data system
- Setting up a data structure that keeps all the data in a way that we can easily export or get out of the system whenever we need
- Changing from an unstructured “everybody writes down what and how he likes” mode to a consistent “every existing item of information has to be structured and handled in a given way” mode.
Why did you choose Contour? How will Jama help you be more successful?
There’s 5 things we were drawn to:
- High flexibility. No specialized software exclusive just to software development, so we could manage both hardware and software requirements in Contour.
- Transparent functionality. No legacy confusions to worry about; Contour provides a complete overall package for us.
- Modern technology. Contour seems well built and serviced, including documentation, forums, etc.
- Rapid development. There seems to be a strong development path mapped out with Contour.
- Value. Acceptable price and low administration costs.
What were you using before Contour to manage requirements?
Wiki, text files and sometimes just pieces of paper.
Bonus question: What’s your favorite band of all time?
Queen.
A respectable choice for someone who obviously knows a good sound when he hears it. For fun, you can check-out d&b’s own musical collaboration entitled “Transformer“. Enjoy the music. And, enjoy the collaborative approach to requirements management with Contour.
Tags: Contour, Customers, Industry News & Trends, innovation, John, product innovation, Requirements
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