What is the point of improving maintenance processes if the most important asset, people, is not properly utilised? Knowledge of the product(s) maintained, maintenance processes and communications skills is very important for achieving quality software and for improving maintenance and development processes. We present CM/sup 3/: Maintainer's Education and Training-a maturity model for educating and training maintenance engineers. This model is the result of a comparative study of two industrial processes utilised at ABB, and of process models such as IEEE 1219, ISO/IEC 12207, CMM, People CMM, and TickIT.

A well-functioning process for reporting, analysing and resolving software problems is an important vehicle for establishing and retaining control over the development and maintenance of software products. In this paper we present such a process, its state of practice and its role within corrective software maintenance. This process is utilized at ABB Robotics AB and is called the System Progress Report process (SPR). The SPR process is the result of our 20 years of work and experience. This paper concludes with our lessons learned and plans for future improvements. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.