Unisys Corp. and the University of California, Irvine's (UCI) Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences said Wednesday the two have teamed up on a project to explore requirement- and rules-driven software.

The research team will develop software and methods to help companies view links between business processes and IT infrastructure, tracing potential impacts throughout the company.

Debra J. Richardson, Dean of UCI's Bren School and professor of informatics, will direct the research along with the Bren School's Professor Thomas A. Alspaugh.

The collaboration between UCI and Unisys intends confirm the company's 3D-VE approach, designed to enable customers to see and then act on cause-effect relationships among business strategy, processes, and IT requirements throughout the entire enterprise.

Unisys intends to incorporate findings into its products, including Rules Modeler, a standards-based component used in Unisys 3D Blueprinting to facilitate definition of strategy and methodology to be applied during a client engagement.