ANALYZED WITH AXIVION

Metabo | KOKI Group

Embedded software quality for safety-critical power tools and battery systems

500

different machines - one battery

51.000

lines of code checked

100%

acceptance by the team

About Metabo | KOKI Group

Logo_Metabo_web_150x60px

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, KOKI Group is a global manufacturer of professional power tools and accessories, with approximately 4,800 employees worldwide and locations across North America, Europe, and Asia. KOKI Group goes to market under five professional/trade brands – Metabo, HiKOKI, Metabo HPT, CARAT, and Sankyo Diamond Tools. HiKOKI and Metabo HPT leverage Japanese engineering principles while Metabo has spent more than a century advancing its German engineering expertise. Metabo's battery technology is also the foundation of the Cordless Alliance System (CAS), the cross-brand platform now used by more than 50 manufacturers. CARAT and Sankyo Diamond Tools round out the group's portfolio with specialized cutting and diamond tool solutions.

Our software development environment spans multiple platforms, IDEs, and toolchains, which makes consistent code quality hard to enforce. Axivion gave us a solution that integrates cleanly across all of it.

Alexander Wolf, Senior Embedded Software Developer, Metabo

Why Metabo Chose Axivion

Support for multiple IDEs and compiler toolchains across heterogeneous embedded platforms

Seamless integration into existing build infrastructure, including remote build servers

Structured PDF report generation suitable for submission to certification bodies

Fast and responsive support that reduced adoption effort in a complex development environment

Safety-Critical Firmware Across a Heterogeneous Software Development Environment

In embedded software development for power tools and battery systems, defects are not just a quality problem, they are a safety problem. Software defects can have a direct impact on product reliability and user safety. Firmware running on battery management systems and motor-driven tools must operate reliably across demanding real-world conditions. Metabo’s batteries are part of the Cordless Alliance System (CAS), a cross-brand battery platform currently used by more than 50 manufacturers. This means the software itself must be held to rigorous standards from the very first line of code.

The development team works across a wide range of microcontroller platforms and ecosystems from multiple manufacturers, using different IDEs, including Eclipse and NetBeans, alongside various compiler toolchains, SDKs, and vendor libraries. Applying consistent quality standards across this kind of heterogeneous environment is not straightforward.

Manual code reviews helped, but they were not sufficient on their own. Certain classes of issues — dead code, arithmetic overflows, code duplication, and maintainability problems — are difficult to catch reliably through review alone, particularly as codebases grow. Finding defects late in the development cycle means more effort in verification, longer correction loops, and the risk of delayed releases. The team needed a static code analysis solution that could keep up with their environment, integrate into their existing workflows, and give them confidence earlier in the process.

Finding the Right Fit

The Metabo development team evaluated several static code analysis tools, assessing each on technical capability, integration effort, usability, and cost. The main goals were to improve software quality early in development and support compliance with coding guidelines. The requirements for a suitable tool were specific: it had to support multiple IDEs and compiler toolchains, integrate cleanly into the existing build infrastructure, reliably detect code quality and maintainability issues, and generate reports suitable for quality assurance and certification documentation.

After the evaluation, Axivion stood out. Its support for heterogeneous development environments, combined with remote build integration and structured PDF report generation, matched the team's requirements directly. The balance between analysis depth, integration effort, usability, and cost was the deciding factor.

Consistent Analysis Across Platforms and Toolchains

Axivion is used regularly throughout development by the software engineering team. Analysis runs cover both the BMS firmware and the firmware for cordless power tools, checking for:

Dead code
Code duplication
Potential arithmetic overflows
General maintainability issues and coding guideline violations

The generated PDF reports serve a practical purpose beyond the development team: they are included in documentation packages submitted to registration and certification bodies, such as DEKRA.

Integration into the team's existing workflow required only minor adjustments. The tool was adopted with manageable training effort, and acceptance within the team was not a barrier as the need for static analysis tooling was already understood. Fast and responsive support from the Axivion team further reduced the time needed to reach productive use in a complex, multi-platform environment.

In safety-relevant firmware, the earlier you catch a problem, the less it costs you. Axivion helps us find problematic code structures early, saving us time during debugging and testing.

Thomas Berlinghoff, Senior Embedded Software Developer, Metabo

Earlier Detection, Less Effort Downstream

The primary value Metabo has gained from Axivion is the earlier detection of problematic code constructs — issues that previously might only surface during later verification phases. Catching these earlier reduces debugging effort, shortens correction cycles, and means that the team reaches verification with higher-confidence code.

For safety-relevant embedded software, where defects can directly affect product reliability and user safety, that earlier visibility matters. The team continues to use Axivion as a standard part of their development process across both product lines.

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