Automotive SPICE in an Agile Era with Digital Process Control
Adapting to Rapid Innovation, Continuous Delivery, and Embedded Quality Control
Alexander Mackert
Principal Consultant and CEO of Knüvener Mackert GmbH
intacs® Automotive SPICE Principal Assessor
Uwe Alfter
Principal Consultant
intacs® Automotive SPICE Principal Assessor
September 2026
Aspect 1: Automotive SPICE
Automotive SPICE has become a globally established framework for assessing and improving development processes for software-based automotive systems.
According to the VDA QMC, approximately 7,200 people worldwide were certified as Automotive SPICE assessors in 2024, with Automotive SPICE established in more than 50 countries. This demonstrates the international relevance and broad adoption of the model across the automotive industry. [1]
At the same time, Automotive SPICE continues to evolve with the industry. The VDA explicitly identifies increasingly shorter development cycles as a reason why development processes need to be continuously monitored and improved. Current development activities also focus on the continuous maintenance and updating of software after vehicle delivery. [1]
The latest Automotive SPICE guideline publications further demonstrate this ongoing evolution. The VDA QMC published the Automotive SPICE Guidelines Edition 2026, based on Automotive SPICE PAM 4.1, with the stated objective of improving the quality and reproducibility of assessments and supporting the monitoring of resulting process improvements. [2]
This demonstrates an important point:
Automotive SPICE is evolving because automotive software development is evolving.
The challenge is therefore no longer whether Automotive SPICE is relevant to modern software development, but how its process requirements can be integrated efficiently into increasingly agile and continuously evolving development environments.
Aspect 2: Agile
Agile development approaches such as Scrum and SAFe are increasingly used in automotive software development to improve responsiveness, collaboration, and delivery speed.
More importantly, there is strong evidence that Agile development and Automotive SPICE are not inherently contradictory.
A Fraunhofer IESE study investigated the relationship between agile practices and Automotive SPICE requirements based on literature research and expert evaluation. The study analyzed 772 mappings between agile practices and Automotive SPICE requirements.
The results are particularly relevant:
- 103 of 155 analyzed agile practices supported
- 173 of 185 Automotive SPICE requirements
- 96% of Automotive SPICE base practices were supported
- 87% of the relevant work products were supported
The authors concluded that companies can benefit from agile development without compromising Automotive SPICE conformity, provided that the approaches are appropriately integrated. [3]
This provides an important evidence-based foundation:
Agility and process discipline do not have to compete.
The real challenge is how to integrate the required process discipline into an environment where development activities, feedback loops, releases, and priorities change continuously.
As development cycles become shorter, the question therefore shifts from:
“How do we assess compliance after development?”
to:
“How do we make compliant and high-quality development the natural way of working?”
Aspect 3: Digital Process Control and Integrated Process Intelligence
The combination of shorter development cycles, agile practices, continuous delivery, and increasingly software-defined products creates a new process challenge:
As development becomes faster and more continuous, purely retrospective process control becomes increasingly less effective.
Traditional compliance mechanisms often rely on periodic reviews, manual evidence collection, document inspections, and assessments. These mechanisms remain valuable for independent assurance, but they are inherently retrospective: they primarily evaluate the result of process execution rather than continuously supporting and controlling the execution itself.
Digital Process Control addresses this gap by embedding process guidance, validation, compliance checks, and evidence generation directly into the development workflow.
Instead of asking after the fact whether a process requirement was fulfilled, the digital process environment can continuously determine:
- What needs to be done?
- Why does it need to be done?
- Who is responsible?
- When does the activity need to be performed?
- Which work products, information, or attributes are required?
- Which process rules and quality criteria apply?
- Is the information complete?
- Is it consistent with related information?
- Is the required traceability established?
- Has the defined process step actually been executed?
- Has the required review or approval taken place?
- Has the appropriate evidence already been generated?
- Are there deviations from the defined process?
- Can the deviation be detected and addressed immediately?
- Which process information is available for management decisions?
- Can the next process step be triggered automatically?
This creates a shift from process documentation to process execution intelligence.
Integrated Process Intelligence extends Digital Process Control by connecting the information generated during process execution across the existing tool landscape.
Rather than treating each tool as an isolated source of information, the relevant process context can be used across tool boundaries wherever the technical capabilities and interfaces of the existing tools allow it.
This enables organizations to establish a continuous information flow between:
Process Definition → Process Execution → Process Control → Evidence → Process Intelligence
The objective is not to replace Automotive SPICE or the assessment process.
The objective is to make Automotive SPICE requirements operational, measurable, and increasingly automated within the development environment, while simultaneously making the resulting process information useful for engineering, quality, project management, and release decisions.
This changes the role of process compliance from an activity performed primarily for assessment purposes into an integral element of efficient engineering execution.
The ultimate goal is therefore not simply to automate compliance.
It is to create a development environment in which the execution of a good process continuously generates evidence of its own quality, while providing actionable information to the people responsible for the development.
Motivation
Automotive SPICE is established. Agile development is established. Digital development environments are established.
The remaining challenge is to bring these three worlds together efficiently.
In many organizations, Automotive SPICE compliance is still supported by fragmented tools, manual handovers, spreadsheets, documents, and checklist-driven reviews.
These mechanisms can demonstrate compliance, but they can also create significant overhead and delay feedback until after the actual engineering work has been completed.
This creates a structural mismatch:
Development becomes increasingly continuous — while process control often remains periodic.
The VDA itself highlights shorter development cycles as a reason why development processes must be continuously monitored and improved. [1]
Digital Process Control provides an opportunity to close this gap.
By connecting existing tools and embedding process intelligence directly into daily workflows, organizations can transform process execution into a continuous source of objective information.
This enables:
- Earlier feedback.
- Less manual effort.
- Fewer late findings.
- Higher transparency.
- Better traceability.
- More reliable release decisions.
And ultimately:
Quality and compliance become part of the development process rather than activities performed around it.
A Short Example
Consider a typical Automotive SPICE–compliant configuration management process.
A configuration management plan defines rules for naming conventions, versioning, and the handling of configuration items.
The development and lifecycle tools, however, may operate independently and have little or no awareness of these rules.
Compliance therefore depends on the user.
A developer creates a work product, applies a name, and manages its version manually.
Whether the defined rules have actually been followed may only become visible later during a configuration audit or quality review.
The resulting workflow can look like this:
Work → Documentation → Review → Finding → Rework
Now consider a digitally controlled workflow.
When the work product is created:
- the naming convention is automatically checked,
- the correct naming structure can be suggested,
- versioning can be automated,
- required attributes can be validated,
- traceability can be established automatically,
- and relevant evidence can be generated and linked to the work item.
The resulting workflow becomes:
Work → Embedded Control → Valid Evidence
The fundamental process requirement has not changed.
The way compliance is achieved has changed.
The Vision
In an environment enabled by Digital Process Control and Integrated Process Intelligence, Automotive SPICE compliance becomes an inherent outcome of daily engineering work rather than primarily the result of periodic compliance activities.
Existing development tools remain in place, while process intelligence is integrated across the toolchain.
Relevant process rules can be applied directly within the workflow. AI-assisted mechanisms can support users by suggesting required information, identifying inconsistencies, and performing pre-checks before formal approvals.
Wherever possible, compliance checks are executed automatically and without additional user interaction.
As the process is executed, objective process information is generated continuously.
This creates real-time visibility into:
- completeness,
- consistency,
- traceability,
- process adherence,
- quality indicators,
- risks and deviations,
- and release readiness.
Instead of discovering problems primarily through retrospective reviews, organizations can identify deviations when they occur.
This changes the role of the assessment.
The assessment remains important — but increasingly becomes a confirmation of an already transparent process reality, rather than the primary mechanism for discovering it.
The Solution
The Knüvener Mackert Process Intelligence Concept (PIC) is not another development or process tool.
PIC provides a systematic approach to identifying where and how existing tools, workflows, and process definitions can be intelligently connected to improve process control, reduce manual effort, and create continuous process transparency.
The starting point is therefore not the introduction of a new tool, but the existing tool landscape.
PIC analyzes the current development environment systematically and identifies:
- where process information is created,
- where it is consumed,
- where the same information is maintained in multiple systems,
- where information is transferred manually,
- where information is re-entered or transformed between tools,
- where process rules are currently implemented only through user instructions,
- where compliance depends on individual user behavior,
- where checks are currently performed retrospectively,
- where required checks could be performed automatically,
- where evidence is generated manually,
- where existing tool data could serve as process evidence,
- where traceability already exists within individual tools,
- where traceability is lost across tool boundaries,
- where existing interfaces can be used to connect process information,
- where existing tools provide automation capabilities that are currently unused,
- where AI-assisted checks or recommendations could add value,
- where process information could be made available to other stakeholders,
- where real-time process metrics could be derived from existing data,
- and where gaps in the existing tool landscape prevent the desired level of digital process control.
The purpose of this analysis is not to maximize the number of tool integrations.
It is to identify the points at which connecting, configuring, extending, or changing the existing tool landscape can create measurable improvements in process efficiency, quality, transparency, and compliance.
Where the existing tools provide the necessary capabilities, PIC defines how they can be connected and orchestrated to create an integrated process flow.
Where this is not technically feasible, PIC makes the limitation transparent and identifies alternative approaches.
The outcome may therefore be an improved integration of the existing tool suite rather than the introduction of additional software.
In some cases, the analysis may also demonstrate that an existing tool or tool configuration should be enhanced, reconfigured, replaced, or complemented. PIC identifies and evaluates these opportunities — but PIC itself does not deliver or prescribe the replacement tool.
The resulting architecture can, depending on the individual environment, enable capabilities such as:
- real-time validation during data entry,
- automated consistency and completeness checks,
- automated workflow transitions,
- rule-based compliance checks,
- AI-assisted pre-checks,
- automatic generation and linking of evidence,
- traceability across connected work products,
- continuous process-performance monitoring.
The degree of automation depends on the capabilities of the existing tools and their available interfaces.
The core PIC principle is therefore:
Do not add another tool to control the process.
First understand how the existing process and tool landscape can be orchestrated to control itself.
PIC creates the conceptual and architectural blueprint for this transformation.
The implementation can then be carried out using the organization's existing tools, their native capabilities, available integrations, or — where necessary — appropriate third-party solutions.
The result is a development environment in which process intelligence is embedded into the existing way of working rather than added as another layer of administrative overhead.
From tool implementation
- to systematic tool orchestration
From adding another system
- to leveraging the existing tool landscape
From manual handovers
- to connected process information
From retrospective checking
- to embedded process control
PIC therefore does not aim to create another process tool.
It aims to identify the shortest and most effective path from the existing tool landscape to intelligent, digitally controlled processes.
References
[1] VDA QMC (2024): Automotive SPICE® creates an internationally valid framework – Quality, efficiency and safety in the development and evolution of automotive software. VDA, July 9, 2024.
The VDA states that Automotive SPICE is established in more than 50 countries, with approximately 7,200 certified assessors worldwide, and explicitly identifies shorter development cycles and post-delivery software updates as current challenges.
[2] VDA QMC (2026): Automotive SPICE Guidelines Edition 2026 – Process assessment using the Automotive SPICE PAM 4.1.
The 2026 guideline is intended to improve the quality and reproducibility of assessment results and to support monitoring of resulting process improvements.
[3] Diebold, P.; Zehler, T.; Richter, D. (2017):How Do Agile Practices Support Automotive SPICE Compliance? International Conference on Software and System Process (ICSSP 2017), ACM. DOI: 10.1145/3084100.3084108.
The study analyzed 772 mappings and found that 96% of Automotive SPICE base practices were supported by the analyzed agile practices.