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16 May

Process Improvement with Automotive SPICE

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Process Improvement is not a new thing in software/ system development, With increase in the complexity of software and system, there was an urge of process improvement. Although process improvement is not a new concept but it’s almost hundreds of year-old concept, we can say with the industrial revolution it actually came into picture. Process improvement not only focus just on processes but also on the overall productivity along with the satisfaction of those who are directly or indirectly affected by those process implementations.

Let us define what is process improvement, it is the art of improving the existing processes by identifying and analysing the weak points of the processes. Once these points are identified they are shared to get those points modified to improve the process. If we talk straight forward, this is an art of letting you know how things can be done in a better and more effective way. Process improvement helps in eliminating the weak links of the process by replacing them with more productive tasks.

Below are few major impacts of process improvement

  •  Reduces or remove the redundant efforts
  •  Reduces or discards the wasted efforts
  •  Helps in reducing process completion time
  •  Improve not only processes but also the resources efficiency
  •  Improvement in the quality
  •  INNOVATION

First let us understand how process improvement works, what is the cycle that process improvement follows.

 

 

Now let us talk about process improvement with Automotive SPICE, Automotive SPICE is not a process improvement model, but can be a basis of process improvement. In my perspective Automotive SPICE was introduced by German OEMs to bring the consistency in the quality of development across the globe for all the car manufacturers. Automotive SPICE provides the process assessment model for the assessment of the processes which indirectly forces the organization for the process improvement.

Let us talk about process improvement with Automotive SPICE

Process Mapping – Automotive SPICE gives a set of base practice for each process required in the development of software and system along with the other support processes such as quality assurance, configuration management, change request management, supplier monitoring, problem resolution management and then coming to project management. Map the set of base practices for each processes to the standard processes of your organization. That will help you to find out if any base practice is missing that has not been taken care while developing the organization’s standard process.

Analyzing Gaps – After mapping the process with the Automotive SPICE PAM, you’ll realize which base practice is missing or which base practice is not completely covered while developing the organization standard process. Now your task is to analyz what can be done to fill those gaps, either you can start by defining a new step to include that base practice or modify the existing step so that it can cover the base practice mentioned in Automotive SPICE PAM.

Redesigning Process – Once you have done analyzing the gaps, start redefining your organization process by using the existing process and the gaps that you have identified. This step needs to be performed to eliminate all the problems identified when analyzing the gaps. It is advisable to indulge your entire team to understand the existing process so that there would not be a chance of missing of any step. Have a discussion with your team about the gaps that have been found and stress on how you can get those gaps filled. Have some brainstorming session with your team to come up with ideas and keep track of potential solutions of the problem identified. When you’re finished brainstorming, analyze each idea to determine whether it’s the best solution. Think about how your team would carry out each idea, how long it would take, and what the potential risks of implementing the potential ideas

Execution – This can be termed as one of the most important phase of process improvement. Once you have redesigned the process and finalized what needs to be done, then comes the time to execute the newly defined process. Keep your team in loop in the previous step as well so that there would not be any last minute surprises for the team, As they are the one who are going to perform the activities as per your process and you’ll get the most resistance from them. If they are informed well in advance, there will be less chances of any resistance.

Monitoring – The story does not end on mere execution, you need to check if the newly defined process is appropriate or not and how you can measure the success of the new process, by monitoring the new process execution. I would suggest put more emphasis on the steps those are newly introduced or the one which are modified and then check their dependent tasks or activities as well. Start keeping a record of what went well and what did not go well or as expected.

Optimizing – Process improvement is a continous effort, It is not a one time event. Once you start keeping a record of the results of implementation of new process, you’ll realize that what can be improvised, what can be removed. Start giving your input and also reach out to your team for any further suggestions.

Automotive SPICE was introduced for the process assessment but has a strong foundation for the process improvement. Automotive SPICE V3.1 gives a set of base practices and generic practices that are to be followed strictly to achieve a particular capability level. Automotive SPICE does not ask to limit yourself to the practices mentioned for each processes but it says that you should atleast follow the practices which are there. There are 32 processes in total for which Automotive SPICE gives the base practices out of which 16 processes comes in VDA scope. These base practices can also be termed as the best practices that are supposed to be followed. These base practices are written in such a way which covers almost each aspect of the processes and if you are following those practices you would achieve the best outcome from your processes and when you are done with these base practices then comes in generic practices.

Base practices are such if you follow them you’ll achieve capbility level 1, then comes in generic practices which helps you in achieving from capability level 2 to 5. What are these capability level that I am talking about here, if we talk in terms of process improvement, we can say that these capability levels are like ladder which can be climbed one by one, once you start following the best practices in the process improvement.

Process improvement is not a single person job neither it can be done in a single day, It is continuos effort by each individual in the organization thriving to get the best output in what they are done and then can only happen by introducing the concept of process improvement.

There must be some benefits of process improvement, otherwise what is the use of incorporating process improvement, Here are few of them.

Financial Benefits

This is the first and the foremost benefit which has been sought after, whenever we are making any kind of improvement. As the process improvement in the longer term helps in reducing the overall effort and less error occurrence, which helps in higher productivity and thus help in increasing the financial benefits.

Increased productivity

As mentioned in the previous point as well,  Process improvement helps in reducing overall effort thus helps the resources to invest their time on meaningful activities which automaticall helps in increasing the productivity on a daily basis. Not of only human resources but also the usage of infrastructure is optimized leading to overall productivity increase

Reliability

The services or the products which are getting delivered or developed with the process in which process improvement measures have been taken are found more reliable as compare to the one which are delivered or developed using the older process. Its just that once the process improvement measures are taken and then executed leads to less error occurrence, which helps in delivering or developing the services or product with more available up time.

Quality

It is one such parameter, which is now used very often by each each buyer in the world. Process improvement is one such funda which helps in improving the quality. Take it like this, the resources and infrastructure are investing their time and effort in meaningful activities and thefore decreasing the overall errors or defect while delivering or developing a service or product, which leads to in0crease in quality.

Customer Satisfaction

When I am talking about customer, I am just not referring to end customer who are going to use the final services or products, I am also talking about the employees or resources who are going to implement the process to deliver or develop the services or the products. Once you start implementing the processes after taking the process improvement measures, you’ll find that your services or products are of high quality, high reliability that tends to help in maintaining the consistency as well, which automatically lead to customer satisfaction. And when you are doing the things right in the first attempt or if there is very less amount of rework that tends to help in increase in employee satisfaction