CMMI is the world’s most recognized software quality standard owned by Software Engineering Institute (SEI) - Carnegie Mellon University. SEI and SCAMPI are service marks of Carnegie Mellon University. (R) CMMI is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University. The R & D Center, at ZTE Pakistan, was assessed in seven process areas of CMMI Maturity Level 2. The appraisal process began about 11 months back with a Pre Appraisal activity, followed by the Compliance Audit and finally concluded in the first week of March, 2007 with the most stringent; “SCAMPI Level A” appraisal, in which personnel interviews and documentation reviews of our implementation of CMMI practices in the seven process areas were conducted. This final appraisal was conducted against Software Engineering & Supplier Sourcing disciplines of CMMI. The PTCL Billing & Customer Care Project, SCO ITI and Paktel IN were appraised during this appraisal. Other than the Lead Appraiser Mr. Rayney Wong, 3 people participated in the Final SCAMPI Appraisal as Internal Appraisal Team Members (ATMs) from ZTE, namely Mr. Ali Ahsan (General Manager Testing, Training & Quality Management), Ms. Saniya Nasir (Testing & Quality Management Engineer) and Mr. Nauman Iftikhar (Testing & Quality Management Engineer). Other than the Internal ATMs, 3 External ATMs participated in the Final SCAMPI appraisal from Netsol Pakistan (Pvt.) Ltd namely Mr. Muhammad Furqan Khan (Vice President Quality Engineering), Mr. Abid Umar (Quality Engineer), Mr. Muhammad Mumtaz Ali Awan (Principal Quality Engineer).

Achieving CMMI Level 2 has been a long and cumbersome journey to this point of excellence but our quality conscience, efficient and dedicated team toiled day and night to make it possible. Although each and every member of ZTE Pakistan Software R & D Center has played a vital role in realizing this dream, the contribution of the following staff was exceptional:

Ms. Saniya Nasir, Mr. Noor Ul Amin, Ms. Saima Nisar Chowdhry, Mr. Hassan Khan Lodhi, Mr. Sami Ullah Khan, Mr. Ghalib Ahmad Adnan, Mr. Fareed Kamran, Mr. Nauman Iftikhar, Mr. Kashif Zeeshan, Ms. Sofia Hassan Gillani, Mr. Rehan Shoaib Chughtai, Mr. Salman Sami Khan, Ms. Sara Naseer Cheema, Mr. Saad Aziz, Mr. Omer Wajid, Mr. Usman Tahir and our ex-employees: Ch. Ishtiaq Ahmed, Mr. Adnan Ejaz and Mr. Imran Khurshid.

I would like to express my gratitude to them and all others here at Software R & D Center for making this project a success. Here I would especially like to thank the support (IMO) staff of R & D center that helped us achieve our target, R & D center’s employees who were interviewed during the appraisal, Commercial Department, Finance Department and also the employees who helped us achieve this target by implementing the processes. Without their efforts and support it would have been impossible to achieve this milestone.

Finally I would like to clarify that this was only the first step of our continuing process improvement program with support of Mr. Jiang JiLong (Director R & D Center) and higher management at ZTE Pakistan. After having understood and experienced CMMI Level Model and its implementation, we are now well set to continue our process improvement program to subsequent levels and are hopeful of even more achievements in the future.

Thanks,

Ali Ahsan
General Manager
Testing, Training & Quality Management
Software R & D Center
Zhongxing Telecom Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd.