The case study details how automotive component manufacturer KOSTAL used Stages to establish and tailor processes, automate reporting and streamline compliance.
The challenge
The development processes of KOSTAL, a global manufacturer of mechatronic components in the automotive industry and headquartered in Germany, were stored as Microsoft Office documents in a central quality management system (QMS) system until 2014. There was no guided tailoring of the standard process description to individual projects. Required process changes were documented in individual project manuals. For each project, the organization had to provide evidence that development is compliant with Automotive SPICE® and ISO 26262 (Functional Safety) as required by automotive manufacturer.
Project duration
Three years
Process transformation
KOSTAL introduced a professional process management system and chose Stages software from UL Solutions Software Intensive Systems. The goal was to model development processes and required supporting processes in Stages and make them available for project stakeholders in a new interactive form.
In the first phase of this internal transformation project, KOSTAL employees responsible for process management and UL Solutions experts worked together and transferred all existing process documents to Stages individually. During the transition to Stages, existing inconsistencies were identified and eliminated. A new version of interconnected processes is released and centrally rolled out every three to four months in Stages. In the second phase of the transformation, process contents were expanded for compliance with Automotive SPICE® level 3 and ISO 26262
Highlights of KOSTAL's transformation
- Introduction of the Stages process management tool.
- Migration of process documents to Stages process models.
- Establishing process compliance with ISO 26262 and Automotive SPICE®.
Customer benefits
KOSTAL's process team now creates a new process instance for each new development project. By the end of 2014, the first project started with process descriptions in Stages. In compliance with the appropriate rights concept, development teams can access the corresponding project. With tailoring, standard processes are adjusted to the requirements of different projects, which are documented in a KOSTAL-specific tailoring report. Further project reports are derived from the database and replace documents that previously had been created manually. Evidence of compliance with Automotive SPICE® and ISO 26262 is deposited in the standard process and available in each project instance while each individual project tailoring is being considered.
Project teams' acceptance was significantly increased via different process views and descriptions. With a feedback mechanism, teams can directly forward their improvement proposals or problems in processes to the process modeler. Compliance with Automotive SPICE® level 3 and ISO 26262 was assessed and successfully confirmed by external assessors. Efforts required to demonstrate compliance to OEMs for individual projects were significantly reduced.
Key benefits of transforming development processes with Stages
- Establishment of process instances for each individual project.
- Adjustment of standard processes to each individual project by tailoring.
- Automated creation of reports.
- High rate of process acceptance within project teams
- Confirmed compliance with ISO 26262 and Automotive SPICE®.
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