A problem report management system for software maintenance

The software maintenance process is complicated, as well as the software development process. In the maintenance phase, a software product is modified according to the problem reports and/or enhancement requests from customers and is released to customers iteratively. Especially in the case of a software product which is used by many customers, the problem reports and/or enhancement requests are reported by customers asynchronously. It is therefore necessary for the project to grasp in which versions these enhancements should be reflected and in which versions they have already been reflected. This is a very complicated task. Problem report management therefore plays a very important role in the maintenance phase. This paper describes a model for the problem report management in such a complicated maintenance process, and the system which was developed according to the model. This paper also describes the usefulness of the model and the system, based on its application to a real software project