SPICE: First intacs™ process assessment model for hardware development
25.03.2020 | Pressrelease
By contributing its own hardware development process, ITK Engineering has played a major part in creating the new standard
Ruelzheim – In 2018, the technology company ITK Engineering GmbH teamed up with other experts from the automotive industry in an intacs™ working group. The aim was to develop a new standard for hardware development. The result of this process has been recently published and heralds a paradigm shift in quality assurance for hardware development in the automotive industry. The intacs™ association is the world’s leading training and certification scheme for ISO/IEC 33020-compliant process assessment models. It has now unveiled the first ever process assessment model for the development of hardware in the automotive industry: intacs™ Hardware Engineering SPICE. This can also be seen as a potential plug-in for Automotive SPICE®.
The platform for this new standardized hardware development process – the socalled process reference model (PRM) – was provided by ITK Engineering. For many years now, the company has been working with customers from the automotive industry on the basis of its very own hardware development process and therefore made this available to the intacs™ working group. This new solution – Hardware Engineering SPICE – will help improve assessment of development processes, identify weaknesses and, on this basis, improve the quality of hardware.
The use of Automotive SPICE® is obligatory in the case of software but not yet for hardware development. However, this new process assessment model does provide a guideline for OEMs – and that’s important, especially with regard to product liability.
Claudio La Rocca, Head of Quality Assurance at ITK Engineering GmbH and one of the world’s first assessors for intacs™ Hardware Engineering SPICE.
For almost two decades now, software development with Automotive SPICE® has been one of the recognized methods used by VDA members for the purposes of process assessment in the development of software-based systems. It supports the development of safety-relevant software in compliance with ISO 26262 and is currently available in version 3.1. Publication of this new standard marks a further step on the part of the automotive industry. In the future, this proven method of software system development will also be integrated in hardware development processes.
