Improving the Validation Process for a Better Field Quality in a Product Line Architecture

Abstract

Telecommunication switching software challenges the development process with the need to continuously update a product line architecture with new features, while simultaneously synchronizing across related product lines that are operational in a global setting. Serving an installed base of over 130 million lines with market-specific variants that have been continuously growing for more than a decade needs careful harmonization of product line evolution with serving customer needs. The focus of this case study is on quality improvement with code inspections and integration testing in a product line architecture. Improving customer perceived quality and at the same time lowering the cost of non-quality are the two primary objectives of the process reengineering activity. The return on investment of described improvements was significant. Several results on the relationships between validation processes, fault detection effectiveness and product quality are discussed. Experiences from over 50 projects of various size that were developed and deployed during 95…98 by Alcatel are included to show practical impacts that can also be transferred to other projects.