Deliverable D4.2 “Stage Gate Tools – alpha version” of the DTOceanPlus project includes the details of the Stage Gate Design Tool, and it represents the result of the work developed during task T4.2 of the project. This tool is an application of a stage gate process which is used in research and industry to provide structure to the technology development process. This approach supports the R&D pathway towards producing reliable and cost-effective ocean energy sub-systems, devices and arrays.
The present document summarises both the functionalities, supporting theory, as well as the more technical aspects of the code implemented for this module. The Stage Gate module will provide the user with a framework to assess ocean energy technology, including guidance on the most appropriate Stage Gate Assessment, evaluation areas and metrics for measuring success. One of the main outputs of the tool will be a standardised report summarising the Stage Gate Assessment in order to inform the user of the stage of technology development and highlight any areas of improvement.
The Stage Gate design tool framework as outlined in this report includes description of stages and stage gates, evaluation areas, stage activities, data input, metrics and qualitative questions.
The Business Logic of the code, that implements the core functionality of the SG module, has been implemented in Python 3. An OpenAPI file has been created that describes the interface between the Business Logic and the Graphical User Interface (GUI), as well as the interface between the Stage Gate tool and the other DTOceanPlus tools. The Back-End implementation of this Application programming Interface (API) was also developed using Python 3 and the Flask Python package. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) was developed for the module using Vue.js and the Element component library. Sphinx was used to generate the technical documentation for the Python code. A unit-test coverage of 100% has been achieved for both the Business Logic and the Back-End layers of the tool, verifying the implemented methods and guaranteeing easy maintainability for future developments of the tool.
Several examples of the functionality of the developed software are given in Section 5 of the report, showcasing the current state of the tool and its capabilities. A section on the future work required to integrate the Stage Gate tool with the rest of the DTOceanPlus suite completes the present document.