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ASPICE is increasingly mentioned and valued by OEMs and component suppliers. ASPICE has almost become a universal standard and guideline in the automotive industry. So what is ASPICE?
Before introducing ASPICE, we must mention CMMI.
Introduction to CMMICMMI stands for Capability Maturity Model Integration, developed in 1994 by the U.S. Department of Defense, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and the National Defense Industrial Association. Its purpose is to help software companies manage and improve their software engineering processes, enhancing their development and improvement capabilities.
CMMI generally adopts the IDEAL method for process improvement, continuously analyzing gaps, establishing plans, implementing actions, and summarizing experiences to achieve improvement.
CMMI includes various models, among which the development model (CMMI-DEV) is used to guide product development. CMMI-DEV v1.3 has a total of 22 process areas, roughly categorized into four major categories: process management, project management, engineering management, and project support.
History of ASPICEASPICE stands for Automotive SPICE. It is evident that ASPICE is developed from SPICE. SPICE was initiated by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), and the Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1) to formulate the ISO 15504 standard. The project is named “Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination,” abbreviated as SPICE.
ASPICE released its first version in May 2005, and after review and final inspection, it was officially released in August 2005. ASPICE has continuously evolved from its initial version 2.0, with the latest version 3.1 released in November 2017.
In fact, based on SPICE, industries such as healthcare and aerospace have also developed their own industry SPICE standards.
Overview of ASPICEASPICE actually consists of two parts: the process reference model and the process assessment model. The process assessment model selects processes from the process reference model and supplements indicators. These indicators support the collection of objective evidence, enabling assessors to evaluate processes based on capability dimensions.
From ASPICE: Figure 1
Process Reference ModelThe process reference model is constructed based on the V-model. An overview of the ASPICE process reference model is shown in the figure.
From ASPICE: Figure 2
ASPICE divides processes into three groups: primary lifecycle processes, organizational lifecycle processes, and supporting lifecycle processes. The primary lifecycle processes are the most discussed, most important, and relatively difficult parts. In ASPICE, the engineering processes are primarily composed of system engineering and software engineering. System engineering and software engineering are prominent in the “V” model, which is also the essence of ASPICE.
From ASPICE: Figure D.2
If you understand the “V” model, the entire process and architecture of ASPICE will be well understood.
From ASPICE: Figure
Bidirectional traceability and consistency are points that ASPICE pays special attention to. However, this traceability and consistency can generally only be checked by inspectors through sampling during the actual project operation. Particularly, consistency is difficult to check with tools.
Therefore, ASPICE requires that requirement documents need to be validated and specific standards defined. Design documents need to be assessed, and assessment criteria may include quality characteristics such as modularity, reliability, security, and usability.
From ASPICE: Figure D.6
Process Assessment ModelASPICE divides the process assessment model into:
1. Process implementation indicators – applicable only to L1
2. Process capability indicators – applicable to L2~L5.
Process implementation indicators are further divided into:
1. Basic Practices (BP)
2. Work Products (WP).
Process capability indicators are further divided into:
1. General Practices (GP)
2. General Resources (GR).
From ASPICE: Figure 3
The relationship between assessment indicators and process capability is shown in the figure above.
ASPICE Levels
ASPICE divides levels into six levels: L0~L5. The reference table for process capability assessment for each level is shown in the figure below.
Shortcomings and Improvements of ASPICEFrom the name ASPICE, we can see that ASPICE’s starting point is to evaluate software – “Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination (SPICE).” Therefore, ASPICE overlooks hardware and mechanical engineering.
From ASPICE: Figure D.1
Fortunately, ASPICE has added an overview of “plugins.” As shown in the figure above, the bolded processes are part of ASPICE 3.1 PRM/PAM, while other engineering processes (mechanical engineering, hardware engineering) are not developed under VDA QMC authorization. Mechanical engineering and hardware engineering need to be defined by OEMs or suppliers themselves.
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