Dr S Ravichandran: Going global with quality

Dr S Ravichandran, an SEI-authorised lead assessor and appraiser for software CMM, CMMI and People CMM, and a Six Sigma Champion and Master Black Belt, is one of the few names that crop up when you think of software quality in India

Dr S Ravichandran

Currently, Dr Ravichandran is the founder-chairman of Trimentus Technologies, the one-stop shop for quality accreditations and standards. Dr Ravi has over twenty years of work experience implementing CMM, CMMI and People CMM. He has held various executive-level positions in leading software companies including SSI, Chennai.

Dr Ravi is an ME and a PhD in Physics / Engineering (interdisciplinary) from REC, Tiruchy. Initially he had a strong focus on quality and software development, but in the later part of his career he became a core professional in software quality assurance. He started his career with the Atomic Energy Commission and Nuclear Power Corporation. Cumulatively, Dr Ravi served these organisations for 14 years as scientific officer. However, the IT bug bit him to such a 'qualitative' extent that he amassed a wealth of knowledge that attracted accolades as far as Carnegie Mellon.

Dr Ravi has to his credit the distinction of being nominated as a member of the advisory board to the world's first annual conference on people capability maturity modelling. He is also the Reviewer for the Certified Information Systems Auditor's course manual of Information Systems Audit and Control Association (IASACA), USA.

In 2002, Dr Ravi set up Trimentus with the mission "to promote and foster a quality culture" in the software industry. The company has its outfits in Hyderabad, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai that serve over eighty clients including big names like AIG, Panasonic, IBM, Oracle, Accenture and Fujitsu.

Trimentus is one of the few India-based quality consulting firms that has expanded its operations into countries like Egypt, Nigeria, China, Philippines, Brazil and Taiwan. The company is in the process of launching its subsidiaries in Egypt and China.

"We have structured our quality-enhancement offerings for process and product segments. We have an R&D wing called Einstein Research Lab and a research group focusing only on software processes," says Dr Ravi. According to him, the research is mainly in the areas of defect modelling, process modelling, defect leakage studies, architecture analysis, fault injection modelling, call centre operations and Six Sigma. The training division of the company offers courses for working professionals in software testing, configuration management and estimation. It has, recently, entered into providing third-party testing solutions involving verification and validation services. With the backing of its research wing, Trimentus is developing project management tools and bug-tracking software mainly for in-house use."We are considered to be one of the top three process consulting firms in India and countries like China and Philippines," says Dr Ravi, who is an active member of various quality forums and organisations like SPIN, NAQR, NDT, and IEI.