Engineering Performance Management
Making business success sustainable
In order to create sustainable business success, engineering organizations are challenged with meeting flexibility, quality and efficiency requirements simultaneously. As a result, the application of agile development methods is becoming increasingly vital for high-performance engineering teams. The teams need to ensure the right things are done by the right people – and that the things themselves are done right. If engineering teams know what to do but lack agile methods, they risk becoming overloaded, fail to set clear priorities, and consequently have difficulties meeting their timelines. On the other hand, if they have those agile methods in place but no traceability in their processes, they can end up with quality problems and will not generate any sustainable business impact.
CBC helps organizations to instill the necessary agility into their processes so that they can create sustainable business success for themselves and their customers. We implement the right management methods, set up adequate frameworks and establish ongoing processes − in the case of software development, for example. In addition to making processes agile, CBC helps engineering organizations to improve their processes and performance in other ways. This includes process standardization to close gaps identified in former assessments and the creation of customized improvement measures based on “health checks” by sophisticated software analytics. We also apply a variety of methods and tools to avoid product risks, potential design defects and liability issues during the development process. Through all these measures CBC contributes to the effectiveness and efficiency of Research & Development (R&D) projects along the product life cycle. Depending on the individual requirements, we offer a range of services from methodology training, concept workshops and IT support, to implementation activities and sustainable coaching, especially in the area of agile transformation with our certified consultants.
Our Solutions
We help organizations to improve their quality, efficiency, flexibility and time to market by establishing agile management methods and setting up frameworks to scale these methods across locations, disciplines and entire organizations. Especially in complex environments, CBC focuses on generating and implementing an agile mindset mainly based on the following frameworks and methods:
- Kanban
As a way to implement an agile mindset, CBC’s solution includes the conception, training, and implementation of holistic Kanban approaches for entire engineering communities, transforming engineering from a push into a pull system.
Within Kanban, the overall workflow is managed in such a way that simultaneous work in progress is limited. This provides a better workload balance and yields a permanent high level of productivity. Furthermore, Kanban comes with a high degree of visualization, so that project progress and bottlenecks can be identified quickly.
- Scrum
Through implementing Scrum as an agile and iterative approach, CBC helps organizations to react dynamically to short-term changes. With Scrum, we enable clients to develop complex products within an iterative framework. This includes the set-up of multiple scrum teams in different countries. Each team organizes its own activities and works independently, which enables quick and target-oriented decisions. With our certified Scrum Masters, we support and coach the client’s teams to ensure a successful and sustainable implementation.
- Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®)
To sustainably implement the agile mindset in an organization and to leverage the benefits of the agile development methods, CBC supports organizations with the demand-tailored implementation of the Scale Agile Framework (SAFe®). With our certified SAFe® Program Consultants (SPC) we set up and support Agile Release Trains on program levels together with our customers, in order to coordinate and manage the dependencies between multiple Scrum teams efficiently.
- Continuous Integration (CI)
CBC helps organizations to become agile in all key areas, including Continuous Integration (CI) of software. This approach enables clients to regularly integrate and test even small code changes in their applications. Features can be verified while under development and modification requests can be implemented more easily. This way, clients can react quickly to new automation requirements and avoid the need for “big bang” software integration.
CBC supports teams in moving towards incremental delivery cycles and fast feedback in order to improve the software quality. We evaluate the existing software integration strategy, identify issues and derive solutions to achieve the target maturity level. Even minor improvements can bring a noticeable impact to the teams.
CBC supports organizations in multiple process improvement activities. Our natural backbone is our understanding of ASPICE (Automotive Software Process Improvement and Capability Determination), which we utilize not only in conventional projects but also in an agile context. In general, our projects focus on two steps:
- CBC Process Harmonization and Usability Management
With the CBC Process Harmonization and Usability Management we aim to apply standard processes in development projects that revealed issues in a previous assessment. We own a set of analysis methods and tools, which we select in collaboration with our customers. Sometimes interviews, workshops or surveys are sufficient to evaluate the root causes of process issues – depending on the severity. In large-scale software development projects, where we consider not only process conformity but overall software quality improvements, CBC utilizes modern software analytics approaches. These techniques allow us to understand relationships and provide insights along the whole development cycle, making traceability gaps obvious. This kind of “health check” supports the creation of sustainable process improvement measures, including suggesting development best practices.
- CBC ASPICE Conformity and Assessment Readiness Management
With our CBC ASPICE Conformity and Assessment Readiness Management the key goal is to check standard processes for their ability to meet the ASPICE requirements and improve them. Through this evaluation we identify weaknesses and gaps between the current and desired capability level. In line with our transparent and traceable conclusions, CBC provides guidance to close the gaps, such as setting measurable process performance objectives for ASPICE capability level 2 and 3 or audit preparation coaching.
CBC helps organizations to make systematic and consistent use of quality assurance methods and tools, in order to avoid product risks and potential design defects, while at the same time eliminating potential liability issues. Our toolset includes safety analysis techniques such as Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) as well as Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). These, reduce system risks and can challenge the product design in a very early development phase. CBC provides holistic project support during the analysis life cycle with methodology training, moderation of technical workshops, documentation of functional safety analyses and system reliability assessment. In addition, we apply Hazard Analysis & Risk Assessments (HARA), check that safety requirements are met, and evaluate hazards based on severity, frequency, and probability of exposure. There could also be complex situations with hazardous consequences, such as mechanical defects. Such cases require a profound analysis of the operating parameters and system design. Performing a Dependent Failure Analysis (DFA) enables error chains and root causes associated with fatigue fractures, for example, to be identified. In combination with a Transfer Path Analysis (TPA) at system level, this allows improvement strategies to be elaborated to reduce risk and ensure a robust product design. In order to ensure optimum product quality, we use Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to define strategic development focus areas.