Basic Concepts and Preliminaries

Abstract

Software is like entropy. It is difficult to grasp, weighs nothing, and obeys the second law of thermodynamics, i.e., it always increases.-Norman Ralph Augustine QUALITY REVOLUTIONPeople seek quality in every man-made artifact. Certainly, the concept of quality did not originate with software systems. Rather, the quality concept is likely to be as old as human endeavor to mass produce artifacts and objects of large size. In the past couple of decades a quality revolution, has been spreading fast throughout the world with the explosion of the Internet. Global competition, outsourcing, off-shoring, and increasing customer expectations have brought the concept of quality to the forefront. Developing quality products on tighter schedules is critical for a company to be successful in the new global economy. Traditionally, efforts to improve quality have centered around the end of the product development cycle by emphasizing the detection and correction of defects. On the contrary, the new approach to enhancing quality encompasses all phases of a product development process-from a requirements analysis to the final delivery of the product to the customer. Every step in the development process must be performed to the highest possible standard. An effective quality process must focus on [1]:• Paying much attention to customer's requirements • Making efforts to continuously improve quality • Integrating measurement processes with product design and development• Pushing the quality concept down to the lowest level of the organization • Developing a system-level perspective with an emphasis on methodology and process• Eliminating waste through continuous improvement