Quality specification and metrication, results from a case-study in a mission-critical software domain

Abstract

Software quality is of increasing importance in mission-critical embedded software systems. Due to the fast growing complexity and accompanying risks of failures of these systems, software quality needs to be addressed explicitly by software developers, preferably with a systematic method for an optimal implementation of software qualities, such as reliability, time-behavior and usability. At the Centre of Automation of Mission-critical Systems (CAMS) of the Dutch Royal Navy, a new approach has been defined for software developers to improve the way that they deal with software quality in the process of mission-critical systems engineering. The stepwise approach is based on both an international quality standard for software product quality, i.e. ISO9126, and on Multi-Criteria Decision Making techniques, i.e. analytical hierarchy process (AHP). The stepwise approach has been validated in a case study. In particular, the tailoring of the ISO9126 standard toward the specific CAMS development situation, and the applicability of AHP techniques, from the perspective of software developers, has been investigated. The case study is carried out in a representative software development project, i.e. the software for combat management systems (CMS) of warships. Results of the case study show that software developers can explicitly deal with quality on the basis of both the ISO9126 standard and the AHP techniques, respectively regarding the specification, prioritization and metrication of software product quality.