This means that an infrastructure is built across all process and tool borders that allows all participants to obtain required information reliably, efficiently, transparently and replicably, or to store generated information. Configuration Management creates views (configurations) of this data infrastructure that are optimized for specific stakeholders and that can also change over the duration of a project. Often live views are created (especially in agile development) that show the current state of the information. A baseline can then be understood as a photo of such a live view, which can be stored and retrieved at any time.

If you think CM is a kind of advanced document management, you're wrong. CM is about more. Whenever large tasks are divided into several smaller ones, it is ensured that the partial solutions can be brought together consistently and synchronously to form an overall solution. Dividing happens, for example, by architects when components are divided into sub-components, or functions are described by sub-functions. Simply stated, CM reduces the costs of dividing and maximizes the benefits.

Central organized CM at Volkswagen Infotainment
A centrally organized CM becomes ever more important the larger the projects and the project landscape become. Small projects often manage to keep their data under control in a self-organized manner. But as our company grows, so do our projects in terms of number and content.

Volkswagen Infotainment has recognized this and has been establishing CM centrally in G-T/Q-3 since 2019. We refer to the current state of science and have developed an innovative concept. We combine the strengths of the three most important references (ASPICE SUP.8, IEEE828, ISO10007). With this concept, we manage to achieve an extremely high quality standard and still establish CM in a practical and efficient way.