The paper describes an actual software improvement process that was carried out in a small company specialized in providing software and hardware design services in the field of real-time systems. The implemented RDQC method addresses a software project by controlling its quality on the basis of the project requirements. This is done by specifying the requirements, mapping them to quality characteristics and controlling the development process towards the demanded quality. A short presentation of the company and the pilot projects is followed by the description of the method implementation process and its results. Encouraging remarks on the usefulness and profitability of the method conclude the paper.