Sperry Marine Receives CMM Level 3 Rating on Software

Northrop Grumman Corporation's Sperry Marine business unit has received a significant Process Maturity Level rating in an assessment conducted by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). The assessment was performed on the software engineering processes for integrated navigation systems and ship machinery control systems. In accordance with the SEI-licensed Capability Maturity Model (CMM) based appraisal for Internal Process Improvement (IPI), the assessment team concluded that the overall Sperry Marine software engineering process was at the Defined (Level 3) Process Maturity Level. The Software Engineering Institute is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense through the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. The SEI's mission is to provide leadership in advancing the practice of software engineering to improve the quality of systems that depend on software. Dr. Bruce Wylie, vice president of Engineering for Sperry Marine, said the successful completion of this evaluation by a highly respected SEI authorized lead assessor reflects Sperry Marine's commitment to the highest standards of software engineering. "CMM Level 3 practices have become a way of life at Sperry Marine, and our customers are seeing the results of our software IPI program. We experienced measurable increases in our product on-time delivery metrics, and we have significantly reduced our warranty costs on fielded systems. These are very satisfying results, as customer satisfaction and defect reduction are key objectives of our continuous IPI program."