February 1, 2018
The $645k (CAD) contract is awarded under the Build In Canada Innovation Program (BCIP) to apply Natural Language Processing technology to requirements quality analysis – with the goal of substantial cost savings & on-time project development within the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND).
QRA Corp, an emerging design verification technology firm, announced today that software delivery of its requirements analysis technology to the Canadian Department of National Defence is complete. The specific tools delivered are advanced versions of the commercially available QVscribe for Word, and QVscribe for Excel. The QVscribe toolset semi-automates the requirements quality analysis process by identifying ambiguities and inconsistencies – empowering DND teams with a foundation for confident & on-time project development.
The $645k (CAD) contract is awarded under the Build in Canada Innovation Program with the Air Programmes group serving as the testing department. The project kicked off in January, with a two and a half month test period. Feedback so far has been very positive, with testers indicating that there is significant potential to increase requirements engineering efficiency – saving both project costs and time.
The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) is looking to acquire complex equipment and systems as part of the Strong, Secure and Engaged Defence Policy. In order to ensure best value for Canadians it is critical that the Statement of Requirements be clear and unambiguous. The QVscribe software can assist in this endeavor by improving and assuring the quality of the RCAF’s Statement of Requirements.
“First launched in the Spring of 2016, QVscribe offered users a new and better method of analyzing requirements – using NLP to intelligently automate the error-prone and mundane review tasks that lead to costly vulnerabilities going unnoticed in requirements documents,” said Alex McCallum, QRA Corp COO. “Although we have been commercially available in 27 countries since 2017, and early adopters include industry titans such as Ultra Electronics and Honeywell, this will be our first sale to the Canadian Government. We are immensely excited to deliver our tools right here at home.”
“Despite the increased presence of advanced technology in today’s sophisticated systems, despite the increased infusion of software throughout our most capable machines, the fist step remains the written word,” said Jordan Kyriakidis, QRA Co-founder & CEO. “Clear, consistent, and verifiable requirements, are the first line of defence in building safe, robust, and secure physical systems. We are very happy and proud to be providing the RCAF with our tools and we look forward to working with them to ensure our products meet their present and future needs.”
About QRA Corp
QRA’s mission is to accelerate the design process and reduce costs across industries building the most complex, mission and safety-critical systems. QRA achieves this mission by building design verification solutions that analyze complex systems and requirements at the most crucial stages of development – enabling engineers to author better requirements, detect design errors, and build with confidence. QVtrace and QVscribe are QRA’s flagship solutions that provide customers with highly sophisticated analysis, and insight backed by decades of research.
About the Build in Canada Innovation Program
This innovation procurement program helps Canadian innovators get their product to market faster, and helps them succeed in the marketplace, by buying and testing innovations in real-operational settings. Through the program, innovators can sell their per-commercial products or services for testing, but keep the intellectual property and retain all equity in their company. The program pays up to $500,000 for non-military innovations, and up to $1,000,000 for military innovations.
Contact:
Trevor Bradley
Marketing Manager
QRA Corp
902-817-5233 (cell)
Email: trevor@qracorp.com