An approach to measure software maintenance and support as a value added component of today´s business

There has been considerable investment by Dofasco in existing manufacturing process software. Also, it has been shown that software must evolve to continue to be useful, and thus enhancement/perfective maintenance work is a common activity in an industrial environment. Since software maintenance can consume as much as 70 % of the lifecycle costs of a software system, there is constant pressure from our internal clients to reduce maintenance costs. This proposal describes an approach of reclassifying maintenance activities to provide a measurement tool for clients and senior management, to see a true picture of efforts spent on "business support", "retain benefits" and to obtain "business benefits".