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Electric Transportation Startup, REGENT, Speeds Time to Market with Jama Connect®

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Electric Transportation

In this blog, we partially recap this customer story, “Electric Transportation Startup, REGENT, Speeds Time to Market with Jama Connect®” Read the entire story HERE.

As the developer of a coastal transportation vehicle, REGENT must adhere to rigorous safety standards for both aviation and maritime travel, and they take that process very seriously. And in order to create the safest, highest quality vehicle, they know that they must implement a world-class development process. With that in mind, REGENT implemented Jama Connect.

After implementing Jama Connect®, the REGENT team has realized the following outcomes:

  • Ability to complete an entire design review in three weeks
  • Reuse library of compliance with more than 25 sets of external regulations and standards
  • Documenting verification and collecting artifacts for compliance is a simple, automated process

RELATED: Certification and the Role It Plays in the eVTOL Aircraft Market

Electric Transportation Startup, REGENT, Speeds Time to Market by Choosing Jama Connect to Simplify and Prove Compliance for Complex Safety-Critical Product Development with Strict Regulatory Oversight

ABOUT | REGENT

  • Founded in 2020 by MIT-trained, ex-Boeing engineers
  • Building their flagship product, the seaglider, a wing-in-ground-effect craft
  • Sub-scale prototype built and a goal of having paying passengers on their 12-passenger seaglider Viceroy by 2025
  • Headquartered in the Boston area

With a mission to drastically reduce the cost and headache of regional transportation between coastal cities, REGENT is building a revolutionary new category of electric vehicle called a seaglider that will service routes up to 180 miles with existing battery technology, and routes up to 500 miles with next-gen batteries. The vehicles will be as safe as aircraft and have better wave and wind tolerance than existing seaplanes and WIGs.

By coupling the high speed of an airplane and the lower operating cost of a boat, REGENT is revolutionizing regional coastal travel.

Founded in late 2020, REGENT has already built a sub-scale prototype of the seaglider and will have a full-scale prototype by 2023.

Backed by many big-name investors, including Mark Cuban Companies, Hawaiian Airlines, and Founders Fund, REGENT aims to safely transport commercial passengers by 2025.

REGENT CUSTOMER STORY OVERVIEW

As the developer of a coastal transportation vehicle, REGENT must adhere to rigorous safety standards for both aviation and maritime travel, and they take that process very seriously. And in order to create the safest, highest quality vehicle, they know that they must implement a world-class development process. With that in mind, REGENT implemented Jama Connect®.

OBJECTIVES

  • Demonstrating compliance with stringent aviation and maritime safety standards
  • Meeting aggressive development timelines in order to safely transport commercial passengers by 2025
  • Building an inclusive, efficient review process

EVALUATION

  • Cloud-based solution
  • Easy-to-use platform with a modern, intuitive interface
  • Ability to scale multiple projects
  • Industry experience and aviation market presence

OUTCOME

  • Ability to complete an entire design review in three weeks
  • Reuse library of compliance with more than 25 sets of external regulations and standards
  • Collecting artifacts for compliance is a simple, automated process

RELATED: Innovative Aerospace Manufacturer Chooses Jama Connect® to Help Revolutionize Space Transportation

OBJECTIVES

As a new company, REGENT knew that they needed to get things right the first time around. With little wiggle room for error, the team set out to find a requirements solution that could help the team turn their ideas into reality.

The main objectives that REGENT needed their requirements management platform to support were:

  • Demonstrating compliance with stringent aviation and maritime safety standards 
  • Meeting aggressive development timelines in order to safely transport commercial passengers by 2025 
  • Building an inclusive, efficient review process

“As a developer of seagliders which are essentially flying boats, REGENT connects the aviation and maritime domains. In the future we will also need to comply with international maritime regulations as well. Because of this, we knew we needed to take a rigorous approach to safety and vehicle development. It was important for us to find a solution that could track requirements and be used to generate the artifacts necessary to certify a flying boat,” said Ted Lester, Vice President, Certification at REGENT. “We wanted to lay the groundwork for the kind of safety-critical development that’s used in the aviation industry. Ultimately, we knew that if you’re developing a new aerospace vehicle from scratch, a good requirements management tool is key.”

RELATED: Considering DOORS® for requirements management? There is a more modern solution.

EVALUATION

From the start, REGENT knew they needed the best available requirements management platform available.

As part of their evaluation process, they began searching for a solution that met the following criteria:

  • Cloud-based solution
  • Easy-to-use platform with a modern, intuitive interface
  • Ability to scale multiple projects
  • Industry experience and aviation market presence

REGENT evaluated a number of solutions, including IBM® DOORS® and Intland codebeamer, but Jama Connect was the only platform that met all of their needs.

“As a startup, we were working with a very small, agile team. We knew that we couldn’t stand up a hosted solution, so it was important to us that we find a solution that could be Software as a Service (SaaS). And with Jama Connect, we were able to stand the platform up very quickly with very little IT work” said Ted Lester, VP, Certification.

“It was also very important to us that our team could easily use the platform. We knew we needed a solution that allowed us to easily trace requirements from design all the way through verification and validation,” said Lester. “Between the more than 25 sets of external regulations and standards we need to follow, our requirements, and our sub-system requirements, we knew were going to have an extensive number. The ability to scale and do traceability easily was key to our selection process, and nobody did that better than Jama Connect.”

Another factor that played into REGENT’s decision was Jama Software®’s deep knowledge of the aviation industry, extensive resources, and industry templates that help teams build the infrastructure for regulatory
compliance with aviation standards.

“Although IBM DOORS and IBM Telelogic probably have the largest market penetration in aviation, we had many people on our team who had worked in the tool in the past and did not have good experiences. With
Jama Software, we had templates available for DO178 and ARP4754 available to help us get up to speed faster.” said Lester.

To read the outcome from REGENT’s choice of Jama Connect, read the entire customer story here: Electric Transportation Startup, REGENT, Speeds Time to Market with Jama Connect®


Decoteau Wilkerson
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