If you want to make this part of your POM for a repeatable build, you can use the fork-variant of a few of the plugins (especially compiler:compile and surefire:test):
<plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId> <version>3.2</version> <configuration> <fork>true</fork> <meminitial>128m</meminitial> <maxmem>1024m</maxmem> <compilerArgs> <arg>-XX:MaxPermSize=256m</arg> </compilerArgs> </configuration> </plugin> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.18</version> <configuration> <forkCount>1</forkCount> <argLine>-Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m</argLine> </configuration> </plugin> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId> <version>3.2</version> <configuration> <fork>true</fork> <meminitial>128m</meminitial> <maxmem>1024m</maxmem> <compilerArgs> <arg>-XX:MaxPermSize=256m</arg> </compilerArgs> </configuration> </plugin> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.18</version> <configuration> <forkCount>1</forkCount> <argLine>-Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m</argLine> </configuration> </plugin>