Economical Software Starts With Business Experiencing CASE Tool Projects with Business, Industry and Government

Abstract

Productivity, quality, and flexibility are critical software engineering issues for the 1990s and beyond. Total Quality Management shows that productivity and quality are directly equivalent to speed. Speed of delivery is first in the top ten systems development issues in the minds of system development executives¹. The late 1980s saw the world reconfigured by the fall of communism, the unification of Europe, and the emergence of the Pacific Rim nations as world class manufacturers. Much of this change can be attributed to the nature of global communications. Not only can nations see and hear conditions in other nations via television but whole industries are coordinated via telecommunications. The Boeing 747 aircraft uses parts or assemblies, whose production is coordinated using information networks, from 22 different nations from Europe west to Japan. The world wide political change has increased the complexity of business and government environments to an extent not yet fully realized. The majority of business and government software systems no longer support either efficient execution of international policy or successful competition in world markets. The most successful software in this environment is that which simplifies the human process, what is successful is software that automates complexity.