Dubai, U.A.E May 20th 2009 - His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum accepted the citation for CMMI Level 3 on behalf of Mercator, the IT division of the Emirates Group and business technology provider to the travel industry. The citation was handed over by the US based Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and QAI at Terminal 1, Dubai International Airport.

His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group, said: "This is an important milestone reached by Mercator in its journey of continuous improvement and drive for delivering high quality business solutions to the industry. It once again highlights Emirates Group's quest for service excellence and innovation in all areas of its operations. We have always been recognised as the leaders in technological innovation and this achievement only underlines our belief in measuring ourselves against industry benchmarks to provide repeatable, consistent and high quality IT solutions."

Mercator is now aligned to an industry standard method, referred to as Capability Maturity Model Integration, (CMMI), which was developed by a group of experts from the IT industry, US government and SEI at Carnegie-Mellon University. The CMMI model has five levels of maturity.

Patrick Naef, President, Mercator, said: "At the heart of our operation in Mercator is the ability to consistently deliver high quality IT projects on-time, within agreed cost and quality and as per the needs of our customers. Throughout the history of Mercator we have put a lot of focus to embed a standard into our work practices in order to deliver all our projects across the various Emirates Group business units and external customers consistently."

One of the challenges that Mercator faced was to get the best practices consistently adopted by over 1400 software engineering and project management staff who work on our numerous projects. SEI mandates a rigorous assessment process involving certified external assessors. For Mercator over 184 projects were within the scope of the assessment and over 85 colleagues participated in formal interviews during the course of the assessment.

Patrick Naef added: "It is an achievement which every member of Mercator feels proud of and as a team we have now set CMMI Level 3 as the minimum acceptable benchmark for ourselves. We will strive to achieve CMMI Level 5 in the coming years and continue this journey of improvement and ensure that passion for quality becomes a way of life within Mercator."

A number of the critical projects being implemented for the Emirates Group as well as projects to external customers such as British Airways, Malaysian Airlines, Tunis Air and Air Algerie were assessed against the CMMI L3 framework.

Jay Douglass, SEI Business Development Manager Europe & Asia, said: "It is rare to see internal IT organisations achieve CMMI Level 3, and I am impressed to see Mercator's commitment to quality. They have a complex environment yet their understanding of the quality framework and their implementation is praise-worthy. Their focus on driving value for the end-customers is obvious and we look forward to seeing them achieve higher maturity levels."

Navyug Mohnot, CEO of QAI said: "As a trusted partner and advisor on the journey, we at QAI believe that Emirates has demonstrated the rigor, commitment, and confidence to successfully complete the requirements of CMMI Level 3 maturity rating. We are confident that Emirates will maintain the compliance, and aim at higher levels of maturity and operational excellence in all areas of Engineering, People Management, and Support functions to ensure on-time delivery and quality. The efforts, commitment, dedication and investments speak volumes of the organisation and the team behind quality and operations at Mercator."

About Mercator: Mercator is a Dubai based leading Business Technology Provider providing business transformation, process improvement and return on investment for its customers. Through Mercator's vast experience in serving the IT requirements of this major organisation, it has developed an extensive portfolio of products encompassing financial solutions, cargo and logistics solutions, passenger and airport solutions, process outsourcing and airline business consultancy. The company also meets and satisfies the full range of the demanding IT needs of the Emirates Group.

About SEI: Since 1984, the Carnegie Mellon® Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a federally funded research and development centre. The SEI staff has advanced software engineering principles and practices and has served as a national resource in software engineering, computer security, and process improvement. As part of Carnegie Mellon University, which is well known for its highly rated programs in computer science and engineering, the SEI operates at the leading edge of technical innovation. The SEI's core purpose is to help organizations to improve their software engineering capabilities and to develop or acquire the right software, defect free, within budget and on time, every time.

About QAI: QAI is a leading global consulting and workforce development organization addressing "Operational Excellence" in knowledge intensive service organizations. QAI was set up in 1980 in Orlando, USA. QAI Global Services, the consulting division of QAI, addresses Operational Excellence. Organizations achieve Operational Excellence through deployment of best practices and processes in areas of Process Management, Quality Management, Innovation Management, Project Management, IT Service Management and others.

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