Consulting services on architecture and agile development

The challenge

As a leading provider of automated storage solutions, the modernisation of storage solutions is of great importance to Kardex. To meet the demands of the current market, the architecture of the Vertical Lift Module (VLM) has been continuously enhanced over the last several years. In order to ensure the scalability, future viability and compatibility of the architecture with the requirements of mechanical engineering, XITASO was commissioned to analyse the architecture and review its implementation.

Our contribution

With our expertise in the development of high-end software for the field of mechanical engineering, XITASO reviewed the current state of the architecture and the desired target requirements, including the PLC, the front end and the back end. To start with, the requirements of ISO 25010 and Q42 were combined with the customer-specific quality criteria for software and evaluated according to the priorities of the client’s needs. The results of a code analysis using special code metrics and a qualitative analysis of the architecture were considered holistically together with the quality criteria in order to propose customised recommendations for an adapted target architecture.

As part of this analysis, the market and competition were also analysed in detail in order to develop an optimal target architecture in the context of current industry standards. In addition, the developer experience was evaluated through a survey, which helped identify potential areas for improving development efficiency. Through workshops and interviews with the developers and architects, we gained many valuable insights, which we regularly presented in the sprint reviews.

The result of our consultation was the development of a range of specific recommended courses of action that went into detail as to how Kardex can make its architecture future-proof and competitive.

Methods