Globalization of Product Software Development
Written by Ronald W. Cox
In the early 1990's embedded product software development at Delco Electronics was changing from an individual creative effort to a team effort and from the use of machine language code to high level language code. This was especially true for GM powertrain control modules which had been on GM cars since 1981. On-Board-Diagnostics was one of the big drivers and new functions for powertrain control was another.
Individuals, Teams and Armies
Watts S. Humphery of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania once said "The history of software development is one of increasing scale. Initially a few individuals could hand craft small programs; the work soon grew beyond them. Teams of one or two dozen professionals where then used, but success was mixed. While many organizations have solved these small system problems, the scale of our work continues to grow. Today, large projects require the coordinated work of many teams. Complexity is outpacing our ability to solve problems intuitively as they appear."
This was true for GM powertrain software. In 1980 there was a staff of about 5 software engineers working on GM powertrain software programs; by 1991 the staff had grown to about 45 software engineers. 1996 ROM size for a GM powertrain controller was 256K bytes and this was to double twice to 1M bytes in the early 2000's.
By 1995 all software programs were effectively using structured methods. Delco Electronics had moved development of all high level language code to Sun Workstations, but some machine code programs continued to be developed on IBM TSO terminals. Many new integrated circuits used in the designs used "micro-coded" smart interface IC's due to the increasing need to off-load throughput intensive tasks from the main microprocessor. Modula-GM was well accepted by our primary customer - GM Powertrain Group, but much effort was still being expended to improve the memory and throughput efficiency of the Modula-GM optimizing compiler for the primary microprocessor used. Software verification effort was also increasing in proportion to the level of systems integration and the number of I/O functions in the products. The use of simulation testing also continued to grow in importance for software verification.
C.G. Smith in Bangalore, India
In 1993, the book Decline and Fall of the American Programmer by Edward Yourdon was published, I bought a copy of the book and found that the last chapter describing software development in India was the best part of the book. It described the many challenges of working in India, but it explained that it could be done, and what could be done to overcome the physical obstacles. In discussions with Delco Electronics' Business Unit management, we were encouraged to pursue a path to lowering development expenses to be more competitive. As I was occupied with Business Process Engineering as a Process Owner, Phillip Baskett, the manager over Body and Chassis software development, worked with several potential software development companies in the Bangalore, India area and selected a company called C.G. Smith. George Smith had set up a software development operation for Motorola in Bangalore that was certified as having achieved CMM Level 5 process capability. Smith later started a company along with Crompton Greaves of India – C. G. Smith. Delco Electronics and C.G. Smith came to an agreement on development cost and process and the relationship as a subcontractor lasted for more than three years. Phillip Baskett moved to India in 1995 and was our first resident manager helping C.G. Smith with the set up and communications. When Baskett moved back to Kokomo in 1997, we moved a young engineer from India named Tuhin Ray to C.G. Smith in Bangalore for a year as our resident manager. Baskett was very effective in the set up phase and Ray followed on with more training and technical expertise.
In 2006, C.G. Smith was acquired by KPIT Cummins.
Delphi Technical Center India
After Tuhin Ray had been in India 18 months, it was agreed that we would replace him. In looking at my passport, I see I first visited Tuhin January 17th to 22nd in 1998. Tuhin's replacement was a more senior engineer, also from India, named Ashok Ramaswamy. Ashok had been managing Delco Electronics advanced projects and had never worked in the powertrain controls area before. I worked with Ashok for several months making sure that he received the training he would need to manage major Powertrain programs in India. Ashok did an excellent job of obtaining the needed training and he and I went on a tour of all our Asia/Pacific engineering sites with Tom Puza, the new Chief Engineer for Asia/Pacific product development. My passport says this trip happened in April of 1999. At the end of the trip in Melbourne Australia, I returned to the USA and Ashok started his tour as resident manager at C.G. Smith. Ashok was not pleased with the performance and the cost of our agreement with C.G. Smith and showed us that we could do more, and be more cost effective if we had our own center. By March of 2000 certain India tax incentives were being phased out for such software centers unless they were already operating. With the help of Satchal Gidwani, Delphi director of marketing, planning and engineering for the Asia Pacific Region, who knew his way around the India government paperwork, we were able to setup a Delphi India owned software development company in time to qualify for the significant tax break. We held the inauguration of this center on Tuesday, November 7th, 2000 from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM at the Delphi Technical Center, 4th Floor, Innovator Building, International Tech Park, Bangalore, India. In attendance were Mr. David B. Wohleen, Executive Vice President, Delphi Automotive Systems & President, Delphi Delco Electronics Systems, and the IT Secretary of the state of Karnataka. Ashok Ramaswamy was our first Director, Delphi Technical Center India. Ashok returned to Kokomo, Indiana in 2001, after I retired, to manage Delphi's global software development and then returned to India as President of Delphi India in 2007. In 2003 Ashok was primarily responsible for all Delphi software design centers achieving the SEI's CMM (Capability Maturity Model) Level 3 which is a significant achievement for any software organization.
The Bangalore technical center is the largest Delphi technical center outside the U.S. It now has over 800 engineers, with plans to add more in 2009.
Krakow Poland Software Group
With the success of the India software group being recognized and understood, Delphi's European design centers thought that Poland would be a good location as we had been operating there since 1994. We just happened to have a manager who was born in Poland and had come to the US while the Soviets were so oppressive to the people of Poland. His name was Jerzy Kowalczuk and he was with us in India in 1999 to see how it was done there (see photo above). Jerzy moved to Krakow in 2000 and started hiring local software engineers and trained the first group himself. Jerzy had excellent Polish language skills and had taught software design at Purdue University. He worked closely with Ashok on the SEI CMM Level 3 assessments and the Krakow software group was also ranked level 3.
Other Global Delphi Software Development Centers
Software is also currently developed at the following Delphi technical centers:
1. Tokyo, Japan
2. Singapore
3. Luxembourg
4. Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
5. Queretaro, Mexico
6. Troy, Michigan, USA
7. Kokomo, Indiana, USA
8. Bomig, Germany
9. Shanghai, China
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