Main

 
The Competitor Vol 1 No 2


The Competitor

A Report on the Global Software Competitiveness Studies

Vol. 1 No. 2
January 1998



Software Value Points Deliver Benefits in Critical Industries

Critical Questions

  • What is the definition of a software value point?
  • How are value points identified?
  • What are some examples of software value points?
  • How does the value point compare to the product line?

Vision

Picture this... Your enterprise is dependent on a product line. In turn this product line depends on software, in particular, a strategically essential software Value Point.

When competition knocks, the enterprise upgrades the software Value Point with high performance algorithms that permit the enterprise to retain its competitive edge. The upgrade is offered to attract new clients, retain old ones, and discourage new entrants. All this is made possible by the ease with which software upgrades can be made and electronically disseminated.

Software Value Points operating at the heart of an enterprise product line are a recent innovation. Earlier, software may have operated as an incidental part of an enterprise line. Today software is strategic and the means by which the enterprise remains competitive. In the future, the prosperity of the nation will be determined by the global competitiveness of its software industry.

Software Value Point

A Value Point is a computer program or software system within an enterprise product line that is strategically essential to the competitiveness of the enterprise.

Types of Value Points

Value Points deliver benefits of various types. One software-based Value Point may provide the means to achieve the requisite variety in product features needed to appeal to very specific market niches. Another may increase the uniformity and reduce the variation in units produced. Still others may facilitate the integration among processes and reduce the time to market. They are like critical pieces of a jigsaw puzzle where the frame and underlying scene are product line products.

Strategic Assets

Once identified, Value Points are tagged as strategic assets subject to the rigors of the enterprise strategic planning process. This ensures that allocated resources are committed to achieve the best industry practice in their project management, product engineering, and process management.

Value Point Versus Product Line

The product line is the focus of the Global Software Competitiveness Assessment. The product line may be composed of processes of various kinds. Some of these processes may include embedded software. Each instance of embedded software operating within a process of a product line is identified as a Value Point. The weight or importance of a software Value Point relative to the product line may vary by industry.

The common factor among all critical industries is that software use and dependency is increasing and that a fault in software operation may represent a failure in the product line.

Definition

The Software Engineering Institute defines a product line as a group of products sharing a common, managed set of features that satisfy the specific needs of a selected market. In an effort to obtain predictable products on schedule and at low cost of production and maintenance, product lines replace the old style tactics of developing software products one at a time from scratch. Product lines are achieved through software reuse based on domain specific reference architectures.

Architecture

An architecture is a reference template for the construction of specific products within a product line. An architecture assists in the management of complexity needed to obtain and sustain intellectual control of the product line.

Product Line Practice

Product line practice is the systematic use of software assets to create, refine, and evolve the product variations and versions that comprise a product line. Product line practice tightly couples enterprise strategic planning and large-grained, architecture-based reuse. Product line practice elevates software engineering to a core competence and software engineers to a precious resource deserving of key employee status within the enterprise.

Product Line Technology Transfer

Promoting and disseminating the practice of product lines must occur at every level: government policy, enterprise infrastructure, and product line operations:

  • Government policy and investment must focus on the incentives and infrastructure needed. Tax incentives can promote product line use, technology investment in domain architectures and reuse can establish engineering foundations, and software engineering education can ensure widespread dissemination
  • Each enterprise must establish the infrastructure capable of obtaining and sustaining line management commitment to product line strategies, evaluating existing and planned architectures for product line practice, identifying software assets, attending to personnel product line skills development, and sustaining the product line operation once started.
  • On the factory floor, the product line operation utilizes the organizational infrastructure in production. Commitment is made, architecture is evaluated, software assets are identified, skilled personnel are obtained, and a product line life cycle is established.

Component Tactics

With a product line architecture, some software components need to be as common as possible to facilitate commercial off the shelf component use and reuse. This tactic benefits the enterprise by reducing the cost and schedule needed to field new product variations and versions. Other software components need to be as unique as necessary to distinguish the enterprise product line from the competition. This tactic benefits the enterprise by discouraging new market entrants and sustaining the strategic advantage over current competitors.

Examples of Software Value Points

Examples of Value Points abound:
  • The rail traffic control system that implements fail safe collision avoidance has created a Value Point.
  • The air traffic control system that implements a tracking system based on Global Positioning System technology has created a Value Point.
  • The personal computer office suite commodity software product that implements Internet access direct from applications has created a Value Point.
  • The precision parts manufacturer that implements fine-grained configuration management of product specifications routed directly to work stations on the factory floor has created a Value Point.
In short these are Killer Apps within their industries.

Telecommunications

Software intensive applications of interest to the study are ground station operations, communications protocols, satellite management, and mobile phones.

Transportation

The applications of interest to the study include reservations, route management, collision avoidance, and global positioning. The transportation industry includes air, ground, sea, and space segments.

Financial

This industry faces extreme challenges in legacy code management, Year 2000 problem, and computer security.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing Value Points deliver benefits of various types including the means to achieve the requisite variety in product features needed to appeal to very specific market niches, increase the uniformity and reduce the variation in units produced, and facilitate the integration among processes and reduce the time to market.

Medical Systems

Software intensive applications of interest to the study are medical information systems and medical devices. Medical information systems coordinate the dispensing of medical services. They are responsible for managing patient histories, insurance complexities, billing, and payment. Safety measures are applied when associating a patient name with medical services. Medical devices used in diagnosis and treatment contain critical safety safeguards in their prescription and use.

Utilities and Energy

The application of interest to the study includes nuclear, electric power, fossil fuel, hydro, and solar power. For example, the Georgia Power and Light Promade Systems is one million lines of code. It is a real time system that polls and reallocates energy resources six times a second to accommodate a fluctuating load and periodic outages. In reallocating energy sources, the system considers the cost of coal, oil, nuclear, and water... every six seconds.

@Copyright Don O’Neill, 1997

Let me know what you think about my page. Send mail by clicking here.

Return to Don O'Neill Home Page