New Orleans, LA— The Control and Information System Integrators Association (CSIA, Exton, PA) reported during its recent 2003 Executive Conference that it's adding a technical management section to its Best Practices and Benchmarks Guidelines for registering system integrators (SIs). Developed during the past year by CSIA's best practices and benchmarks subcommittee, this technical section will ask integrators seeking registration to examine how they come up with technical solutions for their clients, and require them to make sure they have the capabilities, management, and infrastructure needed to successfully implement those solutions.

"The registration process for system integrators previously focused on the business side, but now we're asking people to concentrate on their technical solutions process," says Don Roberts, of Exotek, who is a subcommittee member and a CSIA-designated auditor. "We aren't telling people how to solve technical problems. We just want to make sure they look at how they're coming up with those technical solutions, and that they adequately understand and address how they coming up with solutions."

Potential registrants will be asked to evaluate their operations in light of seven areas in the new technical management section: Technical infrastructure; Project process; Testing; Configuration management; Reuse management; Technical training; and Client information assessment.

The new technical management section goes into effect at the end of June 2003. It will then become part of the evaluation process that every system integrator seeking CSIA registration must successfully complete, and that registered integrators must undergo every three years. CSIA wants all its members to achieve registration by 2006.