SPICE

Vector Informatik GmbH continually improves its processes, motivated by customer satisfaction, quality improvements, and increasing efficiency. Vector’s customers are certain to receive technically innovative solutions which meet the highest quality standards.

Result:

In an assessment conforming to HIS in accordance with ISO/IEC 15504, the Embedded Software Components Development Department reached the excellent SPICE Level 3 for all assessed processes in October 2005. This outstanding result was confirmed in September 2008 by another assessment. Assessed processes are in accordance with the defined HIS scope:

• Software Requirements Analysis determines the software requirements as the basis for design and creating test specifications. Working together with the customer, we determine what should be included in the scope of the work and what is not.
  
  
• Software Design maps the requirements as a programmable description. For this, requirements are mapped to design elements and their dependencies are described. Additionally, the inner workings of architectural components are determined. The design describes how the technical solution efficiently satisfies requirements with increasing granularity.
  
  
• Software Construction coverts the design into programs that reproduce the architecture. During coding the internal specifications and MISRA (Motor Industry Software Reliability Association) guidelines are factored in and any necessary variances are recorded. Specific tests analyze program requirements, thereby creating reusable programs.
  
  
• Software Integration assembles programs according to the architectural desigs. Requirements assigned to the integrated software are automatically tested according to specified guidelines. Reusable software is assembled into customer-specific packages and tested.
  
  
• Project Management identifies, plans, and tracks tasks, resources, and tools needed for the project and how they are used. Project completion dates are planned and tracked by taking the customer’s requirements into account. The challenge is to satisfy diverse customer requirements with customizable and efficient standard software. Management of customer-specific projects is monitored with eASEE, a software tool from the Vector-Consulting GmbH. The eASEE application makes managing Engineering business processes possible.
  
  
• Configuration Management assures that software versions as well as associated documents, tools, and files are consistent. All relevant work results are managed within the Configuration Management environment, which guarantees the integrity of software project configurations.
  
  
• Quality Assurance is planned into projects. Activities are monitored to assure that they are executed correctly, completely, and on time. Some project types in the Embedded Components Division reiterate frequently. These types of projects were identified. Procedures were defined and customized to these projects and can easily be repeated. This makes it possible to establish and execute efficient quality procedures and tool support.
  
  
• Problem Resolution guarantees that in case a defect is detected, all affected work results are identified, corrected and tested. This process is not part of the basic HIS scope, but was considered, since it will be part of the new HIS Automotive SPICE^TM Scope.