AN EXPERT SIMULATOR FOR ALLOCATING THE QUALITY ASSURANCE EFFORT IN SOFTWARE-DEVELOPMENT

Increasingly software quality assurance (QA) is being recognized as a critical factor in the successful development of software systems. However, because the utilization of QA tools and techniques adds significantly to the cost of developing software, the cost-effectiveness of QA has been a significant concern to the software quality manager. As of yet this concern has not been adequately addressed in the literature. The objective of this research effort is to develop an expert/simulator to support the QA effort allocation decision. The expert system module derives QA effort allocation schemes, feeds them into the simulation model for testing, and uses the feedback from the simulation results to improve upon the efficiency of the QA effort distribution. In a case study involving a NASA software project, the model accurately replicated the project's dynamic behavior. The expert/simulator was then capable of deriving a more cost effective QA policy that achieved a 26% reduction in total project cost.