Sustainable development of our world is very important to us at Infometis. After all, we are a part of it. With every product design and every new automation system, we leave a footprint. We want to make this footprint responsible towards society and the environment. You can find out how we do this here.
Sustainability in the Infometis Circle of Service Quality
The ISO 25010 standard provides a framework for assessing software quality, which we use for quality assurance of software products and for identifying areas for improvement. The standard comprises eight quality criteria. By adhering to these quality criteria, we can ensure that products and services meet the expectations and requirements of users, both now and in the future.
The eight main quality criteria currently include: functional suitability, usability, compatibility, efficiency, portability, maintainability, reliability, and safety. In mid-November 2022, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced that it would update the standard in mid-2023 and include another quality criterion at the first level: safety.
To achieve comprehensive service quality, we also consider sustainability in software development to be essential. Since this aspect will continue to be missing from the ISO standard, we are incorporating it into our Infometis Circle of Service Quality.
Our Infometis Circle of Service Quality helps us to continuously monitor software quality in projects and set the right priorities. You can learn more about our model and how we apply it in practice in one of our upcoming blog posts.
But what does sustainability actually mean in product development?
What does sustainability in product development entail?
A future-proof software solution is also sustainable in a broader sense. We aim to avoid technical debt or "spaghetti code" and examine a system for both its external and internal quality. Good software or clean code doesn't happen by itself; it requires a framework and training (both within and outside the project). This allows a solution to evolve, remaining more resilient and cost-effective. This is already well covered by existing quality criteria (e.g., maintainability).
But can ecological and social sustainability alone, in a narrower sense, be a valid justification for our work and a performance characteristic or quality measure for software? We think so.
In Germany, the Blue Angel ecolabel was created in 2020 for resource- and energy-efficient software products. It recognizes solutions that are environmentally efficient, have minimal restrictions on user autonomy, and do not contribute to the premature replacement of hardware.
In the Infometis Circle of Service Quality, we add the following to address resource and energy efficiency, potential hardware lifespan, and user independence:
- Ecological hosting: Sustainable operation of data centers with green electricity and the professional recycling of hardware
- Social responsibility: Perceiving social responsibility in software solution development
Verifying sustainability in service quality is not easy. However, critical questioning and reflection, as well as a review of the supply chains, are necessary to address it and bring about changes in solution design.
Partner on Engineers' Day 2023
The Swiss Engineers' Day and the World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development will take place for the fifth time on March 4, 2023. We are participating as an active partner because we are convinced that we are part of sustainable development. Our work in the areas of quality and automation is never done in isolation; it is part of a comprehensive system and therefore inclusive, regardless of sector, industry, position, or technology.
Would you like to gain insight into our projects? Then we would be pleased to welcome you to our Info Lunch on the occasion of Engineers' Day on March 10, 2023. Click here to register
