Eurocenter DDC, an international software engineering company with offices in Sri Lanka and Norway and a global provider of Software services, last week announced being successfully certified with the CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) Level 3, version 1.2 standard.

Eurocenter DDC thus becomes the first ever Sri Lankan company to achieve this prestigious standard. This quality initiative was sponsored and partly funded by Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) under their ICBP Program to raise the competence of Sri Lankan software development companies.

The Capability Maturity Model® Integration (CMMI) of the Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI), is an internationally recognized standard for assessing and evaluating software development practices. For an organization to achieve CMMI certification, external appraisers must test whether their processes and systems comply with the process areas prescribed by the standard.

The appraisers also check the management systems to ensure whether there is any ongoing monitoring, review, and improvement in the system. Eurocenter’s appraisal was conducted by a SEI certified lead appraiser from Quality Assurance Institute (QAI), a global leader in consultation and evaluation services.

Eurocenter’s journey for process conformity and quality started four years ago when the organization launched its EC Process version 1 as its core development process to deliver software engineering services. This process was based on Rational Unified Process (RUP) and Agile best practices. It was ISO 9001:2000 certified in 2005 and is being continuously audited and recertified. The company’s desire to improve its processes evolved into the launching of EC Process version 2 in 2008 which now conforms to CMMI practices.

Over the past few years, Eurocenter DDC has significantly benefitted from practicing EC Process 2. The company has now achieved a recorded Project Schedule Variance that’s less than five percent and an Effort Variance less than ten percent along with a Rework Percentage less than twenty percent. In short, Schedule Variance indicates how much ahead or behind schedule a given project is. Effort Variance on the other hand is a ‘measurement’ which highlights the discrepancy in a project with regards to Actual Effort against the Planned Effort (estimation).

This quantitative analyses, monitoring, and evaluation have been possible due to Eurocenter’s unique ‘Spider’ software - a Project Management and Tracking System that tracks and monitors tasks at each stage of the project life cycle.

Eurocenter’s quest for quality and ultimate client satisfaction has been a long and eventful journey. It is a strong manifestation of the organization’s corporate vision spearheaded by its CEO Mano Sekaram.

"The CMMI endorsement is testimony to our continued commitment towards aligning our processes to enhance customer value". Sekaram said. "Quality improvement is a continuous journey at Eurocenter... Today we have reached a maturity stage of managing our business based on quantitative measurement thus helping us to predict outcome. This helps us maintain the promise of delivering ‘high quality software services’ consistently".