By THERESA HOPKINS
Atlantic Ranges and Facilities

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, MD—The Atlantic Ranges & Facilities here have earned the rating of Software Capability Maturity Model, Level 2 compliant organization from the Software Engineering Institute. The AR&F provides critical support and training for flight and ground testing of systems and aircraft. These systems are highly dependent on efficient software practices.

During a ceremony at the facility, Vice Adm. Joseph Dyer, Commander, Naval Air Systems Command remarked, “You all have an accomplishment that is worthy of celebration, and I wanted to come over and say thank you. When I talk about CMM, I ask the following questions, ‘What’s the quality of work?’ and we say, ‘Good, we do good work!’ The second question is, ‘How do you know?’ The CMM process is a wonderful response.”

SW-CMM is a software process improvement program that moves organizations like AR&F from undeveloped practices to mature, disciplined ones. SW-CMM provides five maturity levels: Level 1, Initial; Level 2, Repeatable; Level 3, Defined; Level 4, Managed; and Level 5, Optimizing. Achieving each successful SW-CMM maturity level demonstrates that employees within AR&F are dedicated to providing customers with the best software products available.

Ron Lamb, of the Software Engineering Institute, praised AR&F’s special projects office, which led the CMM initiative, as well as the six AR&F teams whose processes are now SW-CMM Level 2 compliant.

“This is a very strong assessment,” said Lear. “One of the cleanest I’ve seen. The cooperation of all the teams of various projects made it easy for the assessment team to find the information we were looking for. In implementing SW-CMM, we saw a lot of benefits as far as better response to the customer, better information for the customer, better cost containment, better schedule adherence – all the things that the model was put into place for.”

This achievement, respected throughout the software industry as a major milestone, sets AR&F apart as a world-class operation and earns the organization respect for its adoption of the industry’s highest standard.

Tom Dobry, deputy director of AR&F, thanked all the teams for their effort. “A little over two years ago, we asked you to take on a challenge,” said Dobry. “You took it on despite tight deadlines and constrained budgets. We will dedicate ourselves to move onto Level 3 and hopefully to Level 4.”

Rod Homan, SW-CMM organizational software process improvement manager, remarked that improved processes are important for supporting the warfighter. “This kind of work – putting process improvement in place – produces better products for the men and women who are overseas, who don’t have the luxury we do of going home every night to our families,” said Homan. “ So when we get into our Level 3, 4 and 5 initiatives, continue doing what you have done for Level 2, and remember that it is helping to produce better products for the Navy.”