WOODBRIDGE, Va. – General Dynamics Amphibious Systems, a business unit of General Dynamics Land Systems (Sterling Heights, Mich.) has achieved a Level 3 rating on the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model (CMM).

General Dynamics Amphibious Systems and KAMO Consultancy performed a joint appraisal of the software development processes used in General Dynamics Amphibious Systems software engineering organization. The appraisal team conducted a rigorous Standard CMM Appraisal Method for Process Improvement (SCAMPI) Class A appraisal. After reviewing representative projects, the team determined that the General Dynamics Amphibious Systems software engineering organization achieved Maturity Level 3 – Defined.

Beginning in 1984, the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) developed its software improvement process to address concerns that industry as a whole was generally not producing software as well as it could. The SEI promotes a disciplined approach to software engineering. SEI developed a capability maturity model (CMM) based on the “best practices in industry.” The CMM is used to evaluate the maturity of the software processes of an organization and for identifying improvements that are required to increase maturity. SEI’s CMM standard provides a framework for improving processes that organizations use to develop and deliver products.

The Software Engineering Institute is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University.

The CMM has become a standard for assessing and improving software processes and is organized into five maturity levels: initial, repeatable, defined, managed, and optimizing. The thoroughness, effectiveness, and control of an organization’s software processes are shown to improve as an organization moves up through each level.

“This achievement is a testament to our key concepts of integrated configuration management, inline process execution and the use of model driven architectures to automatically generate real-time embedded software solutions for use on military programs,” said Paul F. McKenzie, General Dynamics Amphibious Systems software development Integrated Product Team lead. “But more importantly, our team is ingrained with a mature, process-centric, agile approach for software development and delivery to our customers. We operate under a disciplined continual process improvement paradigm that has set us apart from our competition. This team, both within software development and throughout General Dynamics has worked exceptionally well to make this effort a success.”

General Dynamics Amphibious Systems software organization includes a staff of software engineers developing real-time embedded software systems for amphibious vehicles and weapon stations.

General Dynamics Amphibious Systems has made a significant investment in software process improvement to ensure the development of high quality software,” said John Wosina, General Dynamics Amphibious Systems vice president. “Achieving SEI Level 3 demonstrates our commitment to develop the robust and reliable software that is key to amphibious programs, such as the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) for the U.S.Marine Corp. With this achievement and our previous engineering achievement of ISO 9001-2000, our employees have demonstrated exceptional teamwork and professionalism and have helped position us for continued success. We fully anticipate a natural evolution towards CMMI Level 5 certification in the coming years.”

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, employs approximately 81,900 people world-wide and had 2005 revenue of $21.2 billion. The company is a market leader in mission-critical information systems and technologies; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and business aviation. More information can be found online at www.generaldynamics.com.