Finding the cost of software quality

The growth of software use in recent years has focused attention on the problems long associated with its development. Uncontrollable costs, missed schedules, and unpredictable quality have all been regrettable trademarks of the software industry. Moreover, these problems appear to vary in some proportion to the size and complexity of a development project. The maintenance of quality leadership and the reduction of development costs are key managerial issues. Cost has always been a major engineering management concern. As we enter the information age, the cost of information is tightly coupled to the cost of the software that processes and directs it. More and more system solutions include embedded software. Quality affects a company's economics through its effect on income and its effect on costs. Although there is a growing need for a quantitative study of these effects in the software industry, there is an apparent inability to apply quality cost reduction programs proven successful in other high-tech industries. To assist software engineering management in the identification and control of quality costs, a guide to the application of Juran's quality improvement program is now presented.