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Safety is the primary concern when developing systems containing software in the nuclear power domain. Process assessments are used to ensure quality of the development processes for safety‐critical systems. Regulators of the nuclear power industry have increased requirements concerning the systems development processes. Now, process assessments are integrated in the qualification of the systems and are expected to provide information not only based on the assessment model but also about the domain‐specific requirements. Therefore, a specific activity, compliance evaluation, was inserted into the assessment process to provide detailed information that supports analysis of the compliance to the domain standards. Compliance evaluation utilizes assessment findings to create evidence of the relevant domain‐specific requirements. The main purpose of this study is to validate effectiveness of compliance evaluation by analyzing assessment findings and their relation to the requirements of a safety‐critical domain. The analysis is based on representing the data in compliance evaluation reports as binary relations. The results of this analysis indicate that process assessment findings are also relevant when evaluating compliance to other sets of requirements. The results can significantly support the trustworthiness of the process assessment method and ensure effective use of process assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the EU project SafEUr the partnership developed a skill set with learning objectives, training materials, and tools to teach and coach the implementation of IEC 61508 and ISO 26262. Automotive, medical, and nuclear industry gave input to the project. A group of more than 20 multinational companies (SOQRATES) that are also active in the automotive industry (some of them represent the largest suppliers in the automotive industry) organized reviews and trial courses with safety managers. This led to a defined set of skills and tools that are expected from functional safety managers and functional safety engineers. In this article, the authors describe the results of SafEUr, and they explain, based on an example, how these new methods impact the future system and software design strategies in the automotive industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses structure, quality and content of the currently available agile maturity models. It presents two approaches on how to deal with such models. As a first step of the analysis, the paper contains a compilation of maturity level naming used by these agile maturity models because the variety of level naming is a sign of the variety of understanding and of definition of agile maturity. While many papers deal with agile from an inside perspective, this paper is written from the perspective of Software Process Improvement (SPI) and Capability Determination, the European Certification and Qualification Association PI Manager Certification Scheme and also the SPI Manifesto. The paper does not explicitly present its own agile maturity model. The analysis approaches presented in the paper show that the currently available agile maturity models are not fit for industrial use. The synthesis of an acceptable model seems to be feasible as the analysed models address typical organisational processes including life cycle management. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission 15504 has been applied to several domains, where safety is one main characteristic for software and systems. Nuclear power industry is one of the most challenging domains, because of its extreme safety requirements. Nuclear power domain has also a long tradition in using its own standards, classifications and certification schemes. This article discusses the Nuclear SPICE model and how it combines both SPICE related generic requirements with functional safety and nuclear specific elements. Conformance with standards is not any absolute guarantee for safety. Safety can be achieved only by using several different approaches, which all provide their own evidences and support for qualification and licensing. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well‐known that process improvement change requires “tools‐processes‐people.” Engineers have spent most energy on the tools and processes, but everything is done by people, and success depends on people and their competencies. The increasing focus on people is reflected in many change models; some are discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certification of safety--critical software is a multi-disciplinary topic. Process assessment is an essential part of that, but is not enough for software certification. Certification also employs several other method families, such as inspections and reviews, independent V&V, conformance with selected reference standard(s) and use of selected measurements and analyses. Process assessment directly supports qualification of safety-critical applications but is less relevant for certification of platforms and environments. Anyway, qualification and certification are closely related. Certification as a whole supports qualification and makes it more effective. It is possible to adapt and evolve process assessment so that it supports both qualification and certification. Typical process assessment is done for improvement purpose. In qualification and certification it is not so relevant as conformance and management of risks. In this article we discuss the possibilities to develop process assessment to achieve that goal. In most cases assessment is a combination of several approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software process improvement (SPI) can be seen as a profession having its own competence needs and its own community of interest. European projects EQN and EU Cert have defined skill sets and a common certification scheme for about 20 professions, mainly in the IT domain. European Certification and Qualification Association ECQA is created to manage certification and provide the necessary infrastructure. A common way to approach the IT domain from a process perspective is the '3S' concept (Software, Systems, Services). Software process can be seen as the first spearhead among these. The first software process models, such as CMM and SPICE, have already existed for about 20 years. With all the experience that the models bring, it is reasonable to start the PI profession from the software process. Software Process Improvement Manager (SPI Manager) is one of the new topics in ECQA. The development of the SPI Manager training and certification scheme has been done in many small steps so far. This paper explains the current structure and the main components of SPI Manager competences, training needs and the certification scheme. Several other schemes will be developed in the future for process improvement-related competences. The current version of the SPI Manager skill set is mainly based on software, systems and service processes and their related reference models. It could also be used in the future in domains other than IT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software process improvement (SPI) can be seen as a profession, having its own competence needs and its own community of interest. European projects EQN and EU Cert have defined skills sets and a common certification scheme for about 20 professions, mainly in IT domain. A common way to describe IT domain from process perspective is concept ‘3S’ (software, systems, services). Software process can be seen as the first spearhead among these. First software process models, such as Capability Maturity Model (CMM) and SPICE, have existed already about 20 years. That is also the main reason to start process improvement profession from software processes, because we have much experience in that. Software Process Improvement Manager (SPI Manager) is one of new topics in EU Cert project. Development of SPI Manager training and certification scheme has been done in many small steps so far. This paper explains the current structure and main components of SPI Manager competences, training needs and certification scheme. Several other schemes will be developed in future for PI-related competences. Current version of SPI Manager skills set is based mainly on software, systems and service processes and their related reference models. It could be used in future also in other domains than IT. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO) operates two nuclear power plant units in Finland and has started to build a third one. The current nuclear power units have to continuously maintain and update existing instrumentation and control systems (I&C). Each new device will have to be classified and qualified according to its safety requirements. Using modern technology means in practice that more and more components have programmable features. The reliability of such components has proved to be difficult to demonstrate because of the nature of flaws in the software. Standards and rules given by authorities set the acceptance criteria for the components used in the safety systems of nuclear power plants. As a result of this trend, there is a clear need for an integrated and effective method to qualify software-intensive I&C systems in nuclear power plant units. The integration has three major areas: (i) definition and harmonization of requirements for software-intensive systems at different safety classes, (ii) integration of several approaches such as Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE) and Failure Mode, Effects and Criticality Analysis method (FMECA) to improve confidence in qualification and (iii) integration of the system acquisition and qualification processes to improve the total effectiveness of the acquisition, delivery and deployment processes. The integrated qualification method is called the TVO SoftWare Evaluation Procedure (SWEP). It consists of a detailed qualification process and related methods for safety category B and C (IEC 61226) and Finnish safety class 3 qualifications. TVO will use the TVO SWEP method to evaluate suppliers and the conformance of their products/systems against requirements. It has been used in several cases, and it seems to save a lot of qualification resources compared to traditional methods. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]