SEA/I: INTEGRATED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT SUPPORT SYSTEM DESIGNED FOR IMPROVEMENT OF SOFTWARE QUALITY AND PRODUCTIVITY.

NEC has developed an integrated software development support system, which consistently supports development and maintenance of business application software throughout its life cycle. This system is based on the SEA/I (Software Engineering Architecture One) and called the SEA/I system. It has been implemented as a system on NEC supplied operating system ACOS. Various kinds of methodologies and tools have been proposed to enhance software productivity. Among them, the SEA/I system has following features. First, its main ideas are 'standardization', 'componentization', and 're-use and co-use of components'. In addition, components are stored and 'unitarily managed' in SEA/I database. These contribute much to business application program development, because mass production of similar programs is required in such development. The SEA/I system contains many support tools, and by using such tools, software development processes such as design, manufacturing, test and maintenance can be visualized and automatized. Since its first release in 1984, it has been shipped to more than 1000 ACOS customers and applied to more than 330 projects. This figure shows that the SEA/I system is already being put into practical use.