Software moder­ni­sa­tion project for the Centre for Building Materi­als of the TU München

The Centre for Building Materi­als (cbm) at the TU München is one of the most important research and testing insti­tu­tes for building materi­als in Germany. The cbm unites the areas of teaching, research and materi­als testing under one roof. This also includes, as part of the Labora­tory of Building Struc­tures (MPA BAU), the Division Building Materi­als as an appro­ved labora­tory for testing, surveil­lance and certi­fi­ca­tion of a broad range of construc­tion materi­als such as reinfor­cing or prestres­sing steel.

The cbm has a database-based software system ‘Shanti’ to support various work areas in materi­als testing. The inspec­tion proces­ses follow a clearly defined workflow, which is, under IT-based terms, mapped by Shanti. The main objec­ti­ves are to facili­tate work, increase effici­ency, standar­dise work proces­ses and reduce the error rate when creating proto­cols and reports. This is to be achie­ved through the exten­sive automa­tion of work processes.

Requi­re­ment: over several years, the appli­ca­tion was develo­ped intern­ally by cbm. At the start of the project in January 2016, it was in a proto­type, largely untes­ted and undocu­men­ted state. In a tender process, cbm sought exter­nal support for the conso­li­da­tion and further develo­p­ment of Shanti, which was won by pro et con.

Reali­sa­tion: the first phase of the project invol­ved a compre­hen­sive analy­sis and conso­li­da­tion of the current system. Errors in existing function­a­li­ties and funda­men­tal defici­en­cies in the database design (e.g. viola­ti­ons of the relatio­nal concept) and in the system archi­tec­ture were elimi­na­ted and compon­ents not yet produc­tive were finali­sed or rounded off. In a second project phase, pro et con reali­sed the further optimi­sa­tion and expan­sion of Shanti as well as the creation of user and develo­per documen­ta­tion. The existing modules were subjec­ted to a complex software reengi­nee­ring process and new sections were also develo­ped to further automate and standar­dise the indivi­dual inspec­tion processes.

Result: with the go-live at the end of Decem­ber 2016, the Shanti moder­ni­sa­tion project was successfully comple­ted. Since then, pro et con has been reali­sing the mainten­ance and syste­ma­tic further develo­p­ment on the basis of a service contract.