Software process improvement at AlliedSignal Aerospace

AlliedSignal Aerospace committed itself to disciplined corporate-wide software process improvement in 1992 by using the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM). This paper describes the approach taken by AlliedSignal and the results achieved. The improvement initiative covers all software development and maintenance activities in product development that affect the quality of the delivered product. The improvement effort is managed centrally by the Software Technology Council and is implemented and funded locally in order to maximize the improvement potential while minimizing duplicate effort. This paper describes the infrastructure supporting AlliedSignal's company-wide improvement program. Results have been impressive with some sites going from Level 1 to Level 3 on the SEI scale since the program started.