Taguchi-based metrics for software quality

A set of metrics (numerical software measurements) based on the Taguchi philosophy are proposed for measuring software quality. The Taguchi approach, originally developed for manufacturing processes, define quality in terms of "loss imparted to society" by a product after delivery of the product to the end user. The nominal-the-best and smaller-the-best loss functions developed by Taguchi are adapted for software products and case studies are presented to support the adaptation. The proposed Taguchi-based metrics are in line with six-sigma statistical quality control techniques that have been used with software products in recent years. Experiences with the proposed metrics have shown good correlation with existing popularly known software quality metrics.