Process Management and Assessment

Process assessment seeks to determine an understanding of the capability and effectiveness of current processes actually practiced, especially their strengths and weaknesses, and to use this knowledge to identify where improvements can be made.

Performing an assessment will provide you with an objective understanding of the "strengths and weaknesses" of your practices and processes, you will be able to identify more clearly which processes can be improved, what the improvements may be and subsequently measure the achievement, and you can establish a longer term "capability road map" to act as a framework for assessing and improving all your processes. In certain domains, such as automotive, meeting target capability levels is a contractual requirement.

Our focus is on understanding the current capability of processes and opportunities for improvement, based on the industry standards and models such as CMMi®, ISO15504 (SPICE) and Automotive SPICE® and reducing the learning curve needed to plan and perform assessments and to implement process improvements.

There is often a considerable learning curve to adopting the various models for implementation, even in part. You need to understand fully what is involved and what value you can achieve. A fully compliant CMMi®, ISO15504 (SPICE) or Automotive SPICE® can be expensive and potentially disruptive to your normal work and formal training of internal staff to meet the demands is not always feasible or cost-effective.

Impronova can assist in many ways by

• performing internal assessments (gap analysis) against target capability to highlight "strengths and weaknesses" and/or the extent of compliance with industry models such as CMMi®, ISO15504 (SPICE) and Automotive SPICE®
• providing a process improvement roadmap based on the results of process assessment
• enhancing existing processes to address the process risks identified during the assessment and/or to achieve a higher level of capability/maturity
• providing implementation assistance, mentoring and facilitation including explanatory briefings, methods training and workshops, documentation update, process execution
• conducting health checks on ongoing basis to ensure processes meet the target capability and customer requirements
• preparing to defend externally conducted assessments by OEMs and/or their appointed assessors
• providing managed services of clients individual functions such as software quality assurance and metrics
• performing official CMMi® and/or ISO/IEC 15504 (and Automotive SPICE®) assessments
• performing PATHFINDER assessment and certification services of process capability and organizational maturity
• providing introductory and formal assessor training to enable companies to prepare for and to perform their own assessments in a way that is consistent with full compliance to CMMi® and/or ISO/IEC 15504 (and Automotive SPICE®) requirements
• providing independent project reviews and audits to evaluate the adequacy of your organization's standards, processes, plans and systems to meet process performance objectives

Impronova is in a key position, both in performing assessments for the major car manufacturers and in providing implementation support with suppliers to improve their processes, to prepare suppliers for assessments performed by other automotive manufacturers. Our consultants often take the role of (part-time) quality assurance manager in many companies.

Impronova consultants include trained and registered SCAMPI Lead Appraisers, ISO/IEC 15504 (Automotive SPICE) Lead Assessors and accredited training providers for CMMi®, ISO15504 (SPICE) and Automotive SPICE®.