Baldwin said the standard 'offers the potential for intangible benefits that may be realized through efficiencies gained in applying engineering discipline and consistency to the acquisition process.'

The organizations have a lot of buying clout. The White House has asked for US$30.7 billion in defense IT spending in its 2007 budget, which begins Oct. 1. GM doesn't disclose annual IT spending, but in February it detailed plans to outsource $15 billion in IT work over five years.

Michael Phillips, director of special programs at SEI, predicted that the acquisition process standards will win adoption by other IT users because many are already using the CMMI for software engineering. When contracting for software development, some government buyers insist that a bidder meet a certain CMMI level before even being considered, and that practice could be extended to IT purchasing as well, Phillips said.

IT organizations are increasingly adopting process standards like the popular Information Technology Infrastructure Library guidelines for IT operations, which covers tasks such as how a help desk should handle a trouble ticket.

Hubert Hoffman, a senior manager in GM's global systems delivery organization, said the CMMI acquisition standard will help IT shops bring an IT product or service into their organization, then ITIL processes would kick in for managing operations.