Shire Systems Ltd Quality Management System and ISO 9001:2000

Shire Systems delivers high performance, reliable, quality products and services supported by comprehensive application knowledge and sound engineering skills.

Since January 2001, Shire has maintained ISO 9001 registration by continuously improving the Shire Systems quality management system.

In January 2002 Shire became one of the first organisations in the UK to operate a quality management system that complies with the requirements of the new standard BS EN ISO 9001:2000

The Quality Management System at Shire Systems integrates our management processes and work procedures, as well as our ongoing quality assurance and improvement activities essential for the design, construction, and delivery of reliable software products.

The British Standards Institution audits our Quality Management System twice a year in accordance with the ISO requirements for continued assessment. The Shire Quality Management System is backed with comprehensive training, periodic internal audits, and preventive & corrective activities where necessary.

The Quality Improvement Team at Shire are trained to lead auditor / internal auditor level as identified by The International Register of Certified Auditors (IRCA).

To measure and support our quality management system, the Quality Improvement Team at Shire Systems have integrated two industry benchmark frameworks in order to support process improvement.

The Volere Process (The Atlantic Systems Guild) is a widely acclaimed requirements gathering and specification process.

The principle part of this process is the identification of a 'fit criterion' for each user requirement. In essence, this ensures that each requirement is rationalised and tested being admitted.

Since most software faults are caused by the definition of incorrect requirements, The Volere Process considerably improves the resulting software specification and subsequently the quality of the final product.

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) provides a model by which software production improvement can be measured. The five distinct levels have associated measures, which can be applied on a self-assessment basis in order to identify areas of potential improvement.