Evaluation of Accomplishment of DO-178C Objectives by CMMI-DEV 1.3

Software quality is not easily measured, so software development organizations seek recognition from clients through the quality of their processes. The SEI (Software Engineering Institute) created the CMMI-DEV (Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development) as a model for organizations to improve their processes and to be appraised in many levels. However, CMMI DEV is not recognized as a mean of compliance for airborne embedded software, unlike the norm DO-178C, from RTCA (Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics), which is recognized by Federal Aviation Administration by the Advisory Circular 20 115C. This study estimates the intersection between those two documents and proposes a methodology to estimate the distance between CMMI-DEV and DO-178C, defining where a generic software organization following CMMI DEV should focus to start creating airborne software.