SAN DIEGO - SSC Pacific celebrated another important milestone in its already illustrious 70-year history when more than 160 team members were recognized for their significant contributions during Wednesday’s Capability Maturity Model Integration, or CMMI, Maturity Level 3 Awards Ceremony.
“This accomplishment is a major milestone for the command,” said SSC Pacific Executive Director Carmela Keeney, as she welcomed staffers attending the event. “And we’re going to take time out to celebrate!”
The three-year cross-competency effort, underway from June 2009 to June 2012, resulted in SSC Pacific being formally rated at Level 3 of the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) for Development (DEV), a highly-coveted designation by professional engineering organizations. SEI awarded this rating based on results from a Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement (SCAMPI) Class A event, conducted in May through June.
SSC Pacific is the first Navy organization successfully appraised against v1.3 of the model in a SCAMPI A. CMMI provides the essential elements of effective processes that improve an organization’s performance.
An appraisal at Maturity Level 3 (ML3) indicates that SSC Pacific is performing at a level where processes are well-characterized, understood, and are described in standards, procedures, tools, and methods. The ultimate objective, then, is to reduce the cost of developing and maintaining products, and increase quality of SPAWAR’s products.
Keeney, assisted by Chief Engineer Steve Musson, spoke eloquently about the hard work and dedication exhibited by the many civilian and military contributors to the Center’s successful CMMI Maturity Level 3 appraisal this past June, as well as the significance of the rating.
“It really shows the level of maturity we have in engineering and technical processing that is recognized as a benchmark with other organizations. It takes a lot of work to get where we are and it takes a huge team. We talk about system-of-systems engineering – well, this was a ‘team-of-teams’ effort.
“Basically my goal, and that of the command, is to sustain that,” she said. “We will not backslide. We need to continue and the leadership in this room needs to lead and sustain that level of maturity. The reason is because it helps our customers, not because we can hang another plaque on the wall, but because we can deliver better products, better services to our customers. And services are the next big thing we’re looking at.”
These benefits provide the foundation to SSC Pacific’s projects and sponsors from a consistency and repeatability perspective, as they allow the Center to train new team members in organizational and system engineering best practices, which provides for the effective long term deployment of valuable system engineering personnel and resources. This designation verifies years of hard work of implementing the sound system engineering and organizational practices and processes.
"We all knew there would be a return on investment after we would attain Maturity Level 3 and went into sustainment and expansion," Musson said. "What I didn't expect, and was pleasantly surprised to see were the immediate, measurable benefits that the participants realized while we were standing up this program. I saw one Integrated Product Team (IPT) reduce their trouble report aging from months down to an average of less than two days.
Another group had tripled the introduction of new requirements during their process standup, yet measured no increase in their defect averages in unit testing. Another team, using these best practices, found more than 700 defects earlier than they otherwise would have in the life cycle, producing savings and ensuring the delivery of an on-schedule successful operational test to their customer.
Lt. Cmdr. Lorn Reynolds served as Master of Ceremonies and read out citations of accomplishments as certificates of appreciation were awarded to the following teams:
Process Owners
• Contracts, 2.0 Competency
• Engineering, 5.0 Competency
• Program/Project Management, 6.0 Competency
• Total Workforce Management, 8.1 Competency
• Corporate Operations, 8.4 Competency
Integrated Product Teams
• Electro-Optic Surveillance (EOS), 5.6 Competency
• Israeli Missile Defense Architecture (IMDA), 5.3 Competency
• Tactical Receive System (TRS), 5.6 Competency
• Comprehensive Automated Maintenance Environment, Optimized (CAMEO), 5.4 Competency
• Enhanced Polar System Gateway (EPS GW), 5.5 Competency
• Ocean Survey Program Survey System (OSPSS), 5.2/7.1 Competency
• Radiation Detection, Indication, and Computation (RADIAC), 5.6 Competency
Individual honorees included:
Waddad Dubbelday, Tammy Sanchez, Sharon Pritchard, Michael Reiners, Ahn Nuzen, Dana Teel, Trang Vo, Delia Layton, Duston Hayward, Jesse Foster, Steven Musson, Lisa Salisbury, David Dayton, Adriene Miller, Michael Hricko, Sandy Van Densen, Stevo Vuletic, Brian Groarke, Adia Martin, Christopher Maniscalco, Dr. Stephen L. Hobbs, John T. Handal, Marty E. Leblang, Peter T. Shaw, Thomas W. Schmitt, David Hill, Lt. Evan Williams, Chris Lorensen, Ken Register, Anh Nguyen, Jon Basney, Jason Moy, Lillian Craven, Alan Lemon, Alfredo Vargas, Barbara Dine, Casey Loomis, Chanh Vuong, Chris McAllister, Eric Pham, Janet Miller, Joshua White, Marc Stonebraker, Mic Bui, Nestor Armado, Phu Thoi, Phuong Nguyen, Sam McNeely, Sariny Pan, Tuan Do, Vincent Pham, Linda Russell, Nick Freije, Benjamin Gwynn, Omer Nasori, Ken F. Boyd, Joe Mantione, Phillip R. Juarez, Steven Frisbie, Donna Martin-Lim, Kim M. McGraw, Lan C. La, Pete Rieth, Richard P. Sprigle, Ozzie Csanadi, and Debra A. Brady.
Also:
Lori Rodefer, Dan Mitchell, Rich Volkert, Kevin Quinn, Diana Holifield, Hana Merk, Robert J. Rush, Jr., Scott D. Brookens, Timothy B. Aston, Lynn B. Collins, Erik J. Myers, Brian P. Clulow, Chun Q. Mou, Daniel Z. R. Carr, Kristopher B. Gibson, Michael J. Buntin, Robert W. Preston, Alan Sczepaniak, Jerry Danzer, Nathan Paradis, James Schmit, David Simmons, Linda Wells, Pete Whitby, Greg Negron, Gary Jones, Joseph Adan, Mel McArthur, Gary Ivarson, Jamie Schlosser, Kari Thomas, Athanison Monroe, Fran E. Fieser, Dan Austin, Bobby Schrader, Clare E. Morton, Mimi Farrell, Scott Crellin, George McCarty, Stephanie Napoli, Adrian Bagayas, Candice Saka, Ron Sato, Stephen Pappas, George Uedoi, Greg Yamane, Staci Nobunaga, David Ching, Kalani Kitamura, Laura Ha, Gregory Hama, Mandy Nakatani, Paul Niiyama, Fredella Suga, Collin Wong, Sizhen Yoshida, Ryan Fujikawa, Scott Kaneshiro, Dorothy Yoshida, Lester Yoshimoto, Damon Duhaylonsod, Tracy Maeda, Jack Munechika, and Stephanie Schaardt
Also:
Alan Case, Cheri Lanzi, Dixie Dice, Fred Haigh, Kevin Adreason, Peter Morris, Sam Blackmon, Tara L. Blas, Jan DuVall, Laura Zhou, Mike Gray, Tom Brockriede, Walt Nelson, Tony P. Tieber, Jim Crowder, Heather Gomez, Janine Hasselbring, Maria Logrecco, Paul M. Klimowitch, Ferol A. Lewis, Kevin J. Hackett, Callie Leef, Les Stamnas, Michelle Roberts, Joe Marandola, Lara Sia, Michael Gorney, Mike Lasiter, Wendy Bemis, Anne Curtright, Brant W. Lemmons, Frederick Pappalardi, and Steve Lagueux.
The results of SSC Pacific's rating can be verified at SEI's Published Appraisal Results System, located at http://sas.sei.cmu.edu/pars/pars.aspx, under United States Navy, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific. The SEI is a Department of Defense federally funded research and development center operated by Carnegie Melon University. The SEI helps organizations make measured improvements in their engineering and management capabilities by providing technical leadership to advance the practice of engineering. For more information about the SEI, visit http://www.sei.cmu.edu.
* The CMMI®, SCAMPISM and the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute designs are registered service marks of Carnegie Mellon University in the United States and are used under license.