Production process modeling of software maintenance productivity

Reports on efforts to develop and estimate a preliminary model of the software production process using pilot data from 65 software maintenance projects recently completed by a large regional bank´s data processing department. The goals are to measure factors that affect software maintenance productivity, to integrate the quality and productivity dimensions of software measurements, and to examine the productivity of entire projects rather than only the programming phase, which typically accounts for less than half the effort on a software project. Variables relating to the quality of labor employed on the projects are included. To investigate the set of potential productivity factors, the technique of data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to estimate the relationship between the inputs and products of software maintenance. The general approach to this research is to model software development as a microeconomic production process utilizing inputs and producing products