Early measurement and improvement of software quality

The paper combines relevant research in software reliability engineering and software measurement to develop an integrated approach for the early measurement and improvement of software quality. Recent research in these areas is extended 1) to select appropriate software measures based on. A formal model, 2) to construct tree-based reliability models for early problem identification and quality improvement, and 3) to develop tools to support industrial applications. Initial results applying this approach to several IBM products demonstrated the applicability and effectiveness of this approach