Somnuk Keretho, a member of the advisory committee of the Thailand Software Process Improvement Network (Spin), said local software companies need to develop their software to meet the CMMI international standard, a level certified by the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute that serves as a guideline for software process improvement.

CMMI has five levels, starting with Level 1 - "initial" - which is characterised by unpredictable, reactive and poorly controlled processes. The next levels are "managed", "defined", "qualitative management" and "optimising", the highest level.

Somnuk said Reuters Software (Thailand) was the first company in Thailand to achieve CMMI level 5. "Reaching CMMI levels is important for software companies as it gives them the chance to export world-class software to the international market. It also improves the quality of Thailand's software industry," he said.

To facilitate local software companies to reach international standards, government agencies under Software Park Thailand, universities and the private sector set up Thailand SPIN a couple of years ago.

The Thailand SPIN stands for software process improvement network for Thai software industry, and represents a software professionals in a given geographical area who are interested in software process improvement. Thailand SPIN exists to promote software process improvement and software quality by providing a forum for discussions and sharing of software improvement experiences and ideas to support local software to develop their process improvement to meet CMMI standard.

Made up of software professionals, Thailand SPIN helps companies improve their software processes and the quality of their software to reach the CMMI standard by providing a forum for the discussion and sharing of their experiences and ideas.

It also aims to enhance skills, promote awareness of quality methods and best practices and support technology transition through an active programme of networking, publications, recognition of excellence and mutual support.

Suwipa Wanasathop, director of Software Park Thailand said the agency (what agency? Software Park Thailand itself or Thailand SPIN?) supports local software companies to reach CMMI standard so that it will help 10 local software companies reach CMMI certification from Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute. (would help 10 local software companies reach the CMMI standard).

Jirapan Boonnoon

The Nation