Software engineering process improvement through organised methodical and controlled reuse of software and related assets

Objective

The Program and System Engineering Division of Siemens in Austria is committed to a total quality approach. An optimal level of product quality and process efficiency is regarded as a most relevant competitive edge in world-wide competition on the one hand, especially when mission-critical solutions are provided, and as important impact on business issues, i.e. economy, productivity, time to market on the other hand. It is expected that organised, methodical and controlled reuse will further improve productivity and quality.

THE EXPERIMENT

The experiment is designed to show that and to what degree the improvement goals (increase of quality and productivity) can be achieved by reuse supported by organisational measures, method improvements and process optimisation carried out during the experiments. Further to that, to show, that intra- and inter-departmental exchange of reusable assets is efficient.
For the experiment, the project organisation and the Siemens-PSE software engineering method SEM are temporarily enhanced with reuse activities, management functions and metrics. After training and motivation of all hierarchical levels involved, an initial set of reusable asset (software and other results of the software engineering process) is brought in (analysed, classified, described, archived).
After analysing the current situation, the experimentation is carried out on the basis of two Baseline Projects dealing with different types of application (a planning tool in Proj.1 and the integration of computer and telephony in Proj.2). Both project teams bring in the results of their projects, and thus enlarge the common reuse library, both projects use assets from this library emerging from the own and the other baseline project.

EXPECTED IMPACT AND EXPERIENCE

Siemens expects to gain experience with the introduction of reuse in a software producing organisation, to learn about reuse barriers and how to overcome them. The results will be used to improve productivity and quality throughout the own organisation by establishing a refined permanent reuse organisation, reuse method and reuse process.

Fields of science

• natural sciences › computer and information sciences › software
• social sciences › economics and business › economics › production economics › productivity

Programme(s)

• FP4-ESSI 2 - Software Best Practice initiative within the framework of the specific research and technological development programme in the field of Information Technologies, 1994-1998

Topic(s)

• 1.28 - Process Improvement Experiments

Call for proposal

Data not available

Funding Scheme

ACM - Preparatory, accompanying and support measures

Coordinator

Siemens Ag Osterreich

Address

Siemensstrasse 88-92
1210 Wien
Austria