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Wecon PLM and PROSTEP collaborate on AI-based software testing

By Norbert Lotter

PROSTEP and Wecon PLM, an IT consulting company and service provider that specializes in software development, test and project management, will in the future collaborate more closely on customer projects. We will market Wecon PLM's RelAIable software for automating software testing and provide customers with support when integrating the solution into their IT landscapes.

Testing graphical user interfaces is one of the most important and time-consuming tasks involved in software development. It is difficult to automate testing using conventional methods due to the complexity of user interaction, which is why testing is usually performed by offshore or nearshore teams. Wecon PLM has now developed software that automates the processing of test cases with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). The software can be used to test both web and desktop interfaces as well as apps for mobile devices.

RelAIable makes it possible to generate scripts for testing graphical user interfaces based on natural language specifications using multimodal large language models (LLM) and to automatically adapt these scripts when changes are made to the user interface. The test cases can be specified directly in RelAIable or imported from tools like Xray. In the future, it will also be possible to generate test cases using a click recorder or with the assistance of LLM using test descriptions or user documentation. The software can be integrated seamlessly into all leading test management environments such as JIRA/Xray, ALM Octane and Azure DevOps Server.

RelAIable was originally designed as a SaaS solution but since data protection plays an important role in the context of AI, the software is usually installed on-premises. When testing user interfaces for big-name customers, confidential data is almost always involved.

 Wecon PLM has therefore designed the tool chain to run on site at the customer's premises and use the customer's AI infrastructure and/or language models. This is a key unique selling point as it protects the customer's intellectual property and makes it easier for them to comply with data protection regulations, as Bernd Weber, managing director of Wecon PLM, points out.

Collaboration on customer projects

Wecon PLM was founded in 2012 in Munich and currently employs 15 people. The company specializes in software development, process consulting, method development and the testing of IT projects, primarily in PLM environments. We have worked successfully with Wecon PLM on a number of projects for BMW. This gave rise to the idea of stepping up this collaboration for the mutual benefit of both companies. We are currently working together on a proof of concept (POC) involving a variety of typical PLM scenarios at another German carmaker with the aim of using RelAIable to test the scenarios automatically and demonstrate the potential for automation and savings to the customer using real-life use cases.

PROSTEP and Wecon PLM intend to work together in the context of both sales and implementation of the solution for automating testing. "The collaboration will not only help us get in touch with PROSTEP's sales network and customers," says Weber. "PROSTEP will also serve as our development partner so that they can adapt our core software and integrate it into the customer's system and process landscape as best possible."

PROSTEP brings its decades of integration know-how into play in our partnership with Wecon PLM. Our joint offering is not only aimed at big-name customers in the automotive industry, who want to perform continuous testing to determine whether or not the customized user interfaces for their PLM or ALM solutions are functioning correctly, for example. It is also aimed at machine and plant manufacturers as well as medical equipment manufacturers, who are faced with the challenge of continuously improving the operation of their machines and devices.

The use of RelAIable helps simplify the testing of user interfaces dramatically and reduce related costs. This allows test coverage to be increased at no additional cost while at the same time shortening development cycles. Time savings of up to 90 percent – especially in the case of automatically "repairing" test scripts following software changes – make continuous testing and a fast return on investment possible.
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