Re: Pratt & Whitney's Embedded Software - CMM Level 3!

[Marin David Condic <condicma@bogon.pwfl.com>]

dennison@telepath.com wrote:
> 
> In article <371B9A5E.2804AC27@pwfl.com>,
>   diespammer@pwfl.com wrote:
> 
> > continuous improvement. We didn't know anything at the time about CMM
> > because - I think - it didn't quite exist yet. (We're talking about 1989
> > when this whole thing got started). It was a fortuitous turn of events
> > that had the great minds at CMU thinking exactly like the great minds at
> > Pratt & Whitney. :-)
> 
> My memory is notoriously faulty but it seems to me... I started work at GE
> Aerospace in '89. Soon afterwards I was introduced to CMM, and discovered
> they were level 2, getting ready to go to level 3. The first reference I can
> find to it is from '93, but I'm pretty sure I heard about it before then.
> 
GE? The Bad Guys? (I don't think GE Aerospace is the same GE that makes
military jets, are they? Its hard to keep track of the players with all
the corporate reshufflings going on. During the Cold War, we'd rather
have let the Russians into the plant than let any GE reps into it! :-)

I'm sure work was going on with CMM for quite some time before I became
aware of it. You may be right about the '89 time frame being when it
started to gain some momentum. I guess my point was that we were not
developing our Pictures-to-Code process with an eye towards getting CMM
certification. It just sort of worked out that what we were doing to
make a profit also assisted in getting us the certification.

> Last I heard they (now part of LMC) were at level 4, shooting for 5.
> 
LockMart is shooting for a Level 5? What is it that they are making at
that particular chunk of LockMart?

There has often been debate on the economics of shooting for anything
above Level 3. There is some belief that 4 and 5 are interesting and
nice work if you can get it, but that money sunk into achieving it does
not translate into money returned on the bottom line. Of course, a lot
of that depends on the kind of software you are busy building, too. Not
all things worth doing are worth doing well. Fortunately for us, our
embedded software is similar enough from one project to the next that it
lends itself to process improvements more so than other types of work.

MDC
-- 
Marin David Condic
Real Time & Embedded Systems, Propulsion Systems Analysis
United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Large Military Engines
M/S 731-95, P.O.B. 109600, West Palm Beach, FL, 33410-9600
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