Collins Aerospace, an RTX subsidiary, is one of the world’s largest suppliers of aerospace and defense products. Collins Aerospace specializes in aerostructures, avionics, interiors, mechanical systems, mission systems, and power and control systems.
Rapita supports Collins Aerospace with enterprise verification tooling. The Rapita Verification Suite (RVS) enables Collins Aerospace to efficiently develop software up to and including DAL A software to DO-178C guidelines.
Summary
The challenge
- Provide efficient support for Collins Aerospace – a large organization with multiple complex projects running simulataneously
The solution
- Rapita’s expert front line FAE team
- DO-178C/on-target testing expertise
The benefits
- Efficient, expert & timely support
- International reach
The challenge
Collins Aerospace are an enterprise user of the RVS toolsuite. As RVS is used across multiple projects, it is vital for Collins Aerospace that their tool vendor provides expert support for their engineering teams when required. Furthermore, with locations across the world, Collins Aerospace needed a tool vendor that could deliver timely support across different time zones.
As well as delivering expertise in terms of using RVS tools, Collins Aerospace needed a tool vendor whose support team were genuine aerospace verification experts. It was important that Collins Aerospace would be provided with support that was oriented to making RVS fit within their existing DO-178C verification processes without changing how they work.
The solution
Rapita deliver a comprehensive support service to all customers with active RVS licenses. Our dedicated front line support team is comprised of expert Field Application Engineers (FAE). These FAEs use the RVS tools every day and have the expertise to help you solve any RVS tooling question, whether simple or complex.
The Rapita support team are highly experienced in supporting aerospace projects and were able to help Collins Aerospace to efficiently implement their DO-178C verification processes using the RVS suite of tools. The Rapita support team have delivered support services for multiple DAL A (DO-178C) projects, meaning they can support the use of RVS tools in the highest-criticality projects.
The Rapita support team has vast experience of delivering support for both on-host and on-target testing. The RVS toolsuite is designed to be flexible and integrate with almost any final target hardware, and our support team are experts at helping customers to produce stable and robust integrations that will perform reliably throughout the entire project lifecycle, which is crucial in DO-178C projects.
Our support team has a physical presence in both the UK (York) and USA (Novi, Michigan), which means they can cover multiple time zones efficiently.
The benefits
Rapita’s support policy is to always provide customers with the best level of support that can realistically be delivered. This means that we will resolve support issues as quickly and effectively as possible – something that we have consistently delivered for Collins Aerospace. For example:
- We aim to close 50% of all tickets within 7 days, achieving a rate of 70% during 2020
- We aim to close 75% of all tickets within 30 days, achieving a rate of 94% during 2020
The Rapita support team’s aerospace expertise enabled them to support Collins Aerospace’s complex projects efficiently, for a range of aerospace systems at different DAL levels. As required by DO-178C, the Rapita support team supported Collins Aerospace with complex on-target integrations; from initial integration through to target qualification testing.
Further supplementing the help provided by the Rapita support team, a range of other resources were made available to Collins Aerospace engineers to support their use of RVS. These resources included interactive tutorials within the tools and comprehensive software documentation.
Dedicated support personnel in both the UK and US also enabled different Collins Aerospace sites across the world to receive timely help with their support needs.
“We have been impressed with the RVS toolsuite and really appreciated the high-quality, efficient support offered by the Rapita support team.
Technical challenges were solved quickly throughout the project, from initial integration through to target qualification testing.
The team made sure we had a clear path to success underpinned by a solid integration and were always available when needed.”
Corey Hawken
Senior Principal Engineer, Systems Engineering
Collins Aerospace