SAE J 2746:2009-04-23

The impact of software development on pre-production engineering costs has escalated in the last five years to unprecedented levels. Much of this cost is impacted by the quality and reliability of the software deliveries to vehicle builds. Rapid growth of feature content in electronics products has opened the field for new suppliers whose qualifications for software development are often not clear. Organizational level assessments from CMMI, SPICE or other methods do not offer enough granularity or relevance to the OEM's to ensure quality, on-time delivery. The question should not be, "Is this supplier capable?" But rather, "Is the team this supplier intends to use on this product capable of engineering software for products of this Functional Domain?" The significant difference between the answers to these two questions acts as the motivation for the SAE J2746 Software Assessment Repository. The intent of the repository is to promote finer resolution of software capability in an effort to dramatically improve the quality and reliability of automotive embedded software. This support will promote better software development in the industry reducing preproduction engineering re-work, as well as costly warranty issues which result from poor software quality.