If you have not yet had any contact with Automotive SPICE, you are probably wondering why ASPICE is so important and defines the current standard in the automotive industry. We would like to answer this question with the help of this article.
In the meantime, all German automotive manufacturers demand conformity to the ASPICE process standard from their development departments and suppliers. (“What is ASPICE?“)
Automotive SPICE is designed to evaluate processes in a traceable and transparent way. For this purpose, the Process Maturity Model defines a set of interrelated best practices for system development in the automotive environment. You can use these to review and optimize your own development processes.
Below are five reasons why you should start using Automotive SPICE now.
Reason 1: Orders Can Be Secured for the Long Term
From the point of view of a supplier for automotive manufacturers, Automotive SPICE has become a very important topic, because many OEMs increasingly demand a proven ASPICE Level 2 from their suppliers. An achieved ASPICE Level 2 signals to the OEM that the supplier can successfully control its processes and that the quality of the delivered products is secured by a demonstrably effective project and quality management. It is therefore becoming increasingly important to meet this requirement. Otherwise, suppliers may no longer be considered for project awards by OEMs.
Reason 2: ASPICE Reduces Costs and Risks
Empirical analyses have shown that early detection of defects in the product lifecycle leads to significantly lower troubleshooting efforts. Aligning your development processes with the ASPICE process reference model enables your development organization to reduce costs by ensuring that defects and deviations in development are detected and corrected early. At the same time, using ASPICE-compliant processes increases the likelihood that the product will be implemented correctly the first time around, reducing rework costs.
In addition, with the help of the risk management provided for in ASPICE, risks are identified early, enabling the organization to initiate risk management measures in a timely manner. Also, ASPICE best practices ensure that the actions defined and initiated are tracked until the risk is appropriately addressed and adjusted to the situation as needed.
Reason 3: ASPICE Allows You to Make Complexity Manageable
Today, about 90% of all innovations in the automotive industry are achieved through electronic and software-driven elements in the car. For example, the number of ECUs installed in a modern vehicle has multiplied over the past decades.
In the course of increasing automation and digitalization of the vehicle, the complexity and the quality demands on the systems to be developed are rising. In addition, there are increased demands on the conformity of the products, hard deadlines and strong competitive pressure.
ASPICE as a proven process reference model enables you to meet this complexity. By providing a basis for the objective evaluation of your processes and enabling you to eliminate identified deficits in the long term.
Reason 4: ASPICE Ensures Traceability and Effective Knowledge Management
When developing complex systems, it is essential to accumulate and retain specialized knowledge within the organization. Therefore, ASPICE places great emphasis on the documentation of all development activities in order to be able to pass on the knowledge accumulated within a project to future projects. This knowledge is bundled into various artifacts through deliberate requirements elicitation, analysis and development, and refined and documented through designated reviews and consistency checks.
Due to the great importance of traceability of every single development activity, information can be found and referenced quickly in the future. This simplifies knowledge transfer but also the traceability of requirements or errors. As a result, the information required for the development of complex products is retained in the company in the long term and can be retrieved by future projects if required.
Reason 5: Process Quality Leads to Product Quality
Automotive SPICE allows you to establish customized process landscapes for your projects that enable the development of high quality products according to the state of the art. Efficient and well-designed processes, which are based on many years of experience of different automotive manufacturers, ensure that the developed products meet the high requirements of the customers and comply with applicable standards.
This is ensured in ASPICE by frequent and documented consistency and quality checks, always keeping stakeholder requirements in the foreground. This ensures that exactly what was requested by the customer and other stakeholders is always implemented at the agreed cost and within the planned time.
Quality comes from effective product development that implements the correct requirements in a managed manner.
Conclusion
These were some of the reasons why ASPICE compliant system development is so important within the automotive industry.
If you have any questions regarding this article or ASPICE, please feel free to contact us via the listed channels. We would be happy to help you solve your challenges with our many years of experience in the field of system development.