Today SIG and the German certification institute TÜV Informationstechnik GmbH (TÜViT) awarded a five-star software product certificate to the Port of Rotterdam. The General Manager of TÜViT, Mr. Antonius Sommer presented the certificate to Mr. Herman Hanekamp, ICT Programme Manager Harbour Master Informationservices at Port of Rotterdam. The Port of Rotterdam is only the second organization ever to have achieved the full five star accreditation.

  
The Port Authority is very pleased with this result as it proves the high-quality construction of the newly delivered information system, which ensures that it will be easy to maintain and adapt.

The SIG/TÜViT quality model benchmarks software against hundreds of software products. A five-star rating places the system among the top 5% of these software products (see table).
  

Image: Overview software product quality versus productivity.

The productivity of developers and maintenance programmers in the case of five-star systems, is twice as high as in the case of average-quality, three-star systems (see table). Given that the costs of building a software system, as well as maintaining one, can be expensive and escalate unexpectedly, early control in terms of software quality can lead to significant savings in costs.

Port of Rotterdam has recognised this and as it is investing heavily in improving its facilities, compliance and competitiveness sees the software as an important cornerstone to its ongoing business.

About the certificate
The certificate was developed by SIG in collaboration with TÜViT and is specifically geared towards demonstrating the technical quality of software systems in line with ISO 9126 and a number of evaluation criteria derived from this. Software of a high degree of technical quality leads to: reduction in costs of ownership, reduction of management risks and primarily keeping software systems easily adaptable, enabling new user needs to be met. In addition, the certificate offers a clear benchmark for establishing clear agreements between clients and suppliers in the IT industry.

Software product certificates issued to date can be viewed and downloaded at:
www.tuvit.de/english/69055.asp