Mini Case Studies with ISO/IEC 29110

This page describes Mini Case Studies of projects which have deployed systems engineering and/or software engineering ISO/IEC 29110.

Each Mini Case Studies has the following information:

  • Abstract
  • The VSE and its Environment
  • Starting Point
  • The Improvement Project
  • Results
  • Lessons Learned
  • Plans for the Future
  • References

A web application with ISO/IEC 29110 has been developed for Zorah Biocosmétiques, a Montreal-based company with 20 employees. This company has been operating in the industrial field of cosmetics production for more than ten years. The company has created a line of high-end cosmetics products based on organic, ecological and fair ingredients.

This application automates the manufacturing process of Zorah Biocosmetics beauty products to prove to the Canadian Department of Health that the production process of its products complies with the health and hygiene rules established by the Department and to make a better inventory management of products. This solution uses as a main reference the Basic profile of ISO/IEC 29110.

This case study describes the methodology based on the ISO/IEC 29110. It also presents the results obtained by the utilisation of ISO/IEC 29110, the difficulties encountered and a few lessons learned. Finally, recommendations were made to Zorah Biocosmétiques to encourage the company to continue using ISO/IEC 29110 as part of his projects and also to the editors of ISO/IEC 29110 to help improve it.

NoMADA® Industries is a company founded in 2008. The company has its main facilities in Guadalupe, Mexico. NoMADA® Industries develops and commercializes embedded development boards for robotics, mechatronics and IoT (Internet of Things) applications. The Basic profile of ISO/IEC 29110 was used for the development of the firmware and software applications demanded by NoMADA® Industries’ customers. In September 2017, the Very Small Entity was successfully audited in 2017 by a third-party auditor from the Mexican agency NYCE against the Basic profile of ISO/IEC 29110. NoMADA® Industries has 4 employees and is planning to hire one software engineer, one hardware engineer and one administrator.


NoMADA Mini Case Study


Video with the President of NoMADA Industries


Metam Solutions is a company founded in 2013. The company has one site in Canada and one site in Tunisia. Its business domains are software development services, web solutions, mobile applications as well as consulting services to implement ERP solutions.

The Basic profile of ISO 29110 was used as the framework for the company’s software processes. It was also used as a foundation to implement CMMI-DEV level 2 practices because it is requested by some military contracts. In Fall 2016, the VSE was successfully audited by a third-party auditor against the Basic profile of ISO/IEC 29110. Metam has 20 employees in 2017.


Metam Mini Case Study



4-Minute Video with the President of Metam


The 80 employees of the Treasury Solutions Department (TSD) is responsible for the development and maintenance of software applications used by traders of a major Canadian financial institution. Each year, the department observes a significant increase in its backlog to add, correct or modify features related to supported applications. The Management and Engineering Guide of the Basic profile of ISO/IEC 29110 was implemented, by a team of 6 developers, in an agile approach with SCRUM. The new agile process has been tested on three pilot projects.

The implementation of the new process ISO/IEC 29110-agile process has resulted in significant reduction in the number and the impact of incidents. The traders are very satisfied with the new agile approach. With the new agile-ISO/IEC 29110 process, traders better manage their priorities of their requests for new functionalities and they know more about the progress of their requests.

The IT division of a large Canadian utility provider has 1950 employees that support more than 2,100 applications. The organization had already implemented 12 Process Areas of level 2 and 3 of the CMMI-DEV. Traditional lifecycles were used for the development of applications. 

The deliverables requested, by the methodology in place, were too numerous for small projects. This improvement project was conducted in a department specializing in the development of web-based and georeferenced applications. This department, a very small entity (VSE), consisted of 11 people.

This project combined the benefits of ISO/IEC 29110, specifically designed for very small entities, with some elements of the CMMI®. During this 1,500-hour project, done in 4 sprints, the Basic profile and the deployment packages guided the development of an application to quickly produce a superior application. For this project, only 9.6% of the total effort was devoted to the correction of defects (i.e. rework) detected by the evaluations such as reviews and tests.


Mini Case Study

  • An Innovative Approach to the Development of Project Management Processes for Small-scale Projects in a large Engineering Company  Mini Case Study
A Canadian division of a large American engineering company has developed and implemented project management processes for their small-scale and medium-scale projects. The company was already using a robust project management process for their large-scale projects. The objectives of this process improvement project were to reduce cost overruns and project delays, standardize practices to facilitate the integration of new managers, increase the level of customer satisfaction and to reduce risk-related planning deviations.

For this improvement project, the engineering organization used the new ISO/IEC 29110 standard developed specifically for very small entities. An analysis of the cost and the benefits of the implementation of small and medium scale project management processes was performed using the ISO economic benefits of standard methodology. The engineering enterprise estimated that, over a three-year timeframe, savings of about 780,000$ would be realized due to the implementation of project management processes using the ISO/IEC 29110 standard.


  • Implementing the New ISO/IEC 29110 Systems Engineering Process Standard in a Small Public Transportation Company
The recently published ISO/IEC 29110 for systems engineering has been used as the main framework for the development of the management and systems engineering processes at CSinTrans Inc. (CSiT), a Canadian company, founded in 2011. CSiT specializes in the integration of communication and security systems in transit industry such as trains, subways and buses as well as railway stations, subway stations and bus stops.  CSiT approved an internal project to define and implement project management and systems engineering processes.

The project's history, purpose and rationale that prompted CSiT to adopt the new systems engineering process standard are presented. The implementation of the ISO/IEC 29110 is described. The reflections and decisions made during the implementation are presented. Recommendations and advice for organizations wanting to implement ISO/IEC 29110 are described.

ISO/IEC 29110 has helped raise the maturity of the young organization by implementing proven practices and developing consistent work products from one project to another. ISO/IEC 29110 was a good starting point to align processes of CSiT with practices of CMMI®. ISO/IEC 29110 has helped CSiT with developing light processes as well as remaining flexible and quick in its ability to respond to its customers.





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