Strategy-Based Design of Reusable Business Components

Abstract

Grounded on principles of manufacturing design, component-based software development (CBSD) has been viewed as the future trend in software development. In this paper, we propose a methodology for component fabrication and argue that, as in classical product development, business strategy of component development companies must guide the design of reusable business components. Accordingly, we link business strategy with component design through managerial goals (identified as cost effectiveness, ease of assembly, customization, reusability, and maintainability). These managerial goals are then mapped to technical features (identified as coupling, cohesion, number of components, component size, and complexity). We develop a formal model, called Business Strategy-based Component Design that uses the object-oriented model of a business to derive the component structure by grouping appropriate object classes to achieve the desired business strategy. We examine the validity of the model by a two-phase application process.