Quality and reuse in industrial software engineering

The drive for productivity in the software industry is forcing major changes in the ways that software development and maintenance are being done. The technical trends contributing most to improved productivity are the improvement in quality of products and processes; and the reuse of code and other software components, such as design and requirements. The author surveys these technical trends. Each has gone beyond the research stage, and the preliminary results from pilot industrial projects have been reported. He summarizes the information available on the costs and benefits of the approaches, and the criteria which determine a successful transfer of the technique to industry. Each has demonstrated a long-term (3-6 years) return on investment, under the right circumstances. They have nor in general delivered short-term payoffs.