Principles of Software Engineering - PDF

Running head: PRINCIPLES OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Principles of software engineering
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1PRINCIPLES OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
Question a- Illustration of (Mcllroy’s) law.
The law states that software reuse increases quality and productivity and reduces
cycle time. The law was formally drafted in 1968 and this is still valid today. The reason will
be discussed below. There is a need to understand what software reuse is. Existing software
system can be used to create new systems rather than building particular software from
scratch. Mcllroy’s vision stated that off-the-shelf components should be used as building
blocks in brand new systems and modifications within the new system would in a way that is
controlled (Sametinger, 1997). One of the major limitations of this law is that it failed to
address that development of components is also critical. Components that are deemed to be
the building blocks need to be upgraded too. Generative reuse is much more beneficial than
compositional reuse. This type of reuse will increase productivity factor is software. One of
the major advantages that this law brings is that it improves quality considerably since there
is accumulation of error fixes because of reuse after reuse.
Question b- Illustration of (Glass’s) law.
This law states that the prime source of project failures is deficiency in requirements.
This law basically explains that during the course of software development, certain properties
a software development system must have. The first phase is the requirement phase and the
task of this phase is to investigate all the question s that start from ‘W’. Questions like- (what
type of users’ use it, what features it can provide and after final development where the final
product can be used). It is very important that requirements are constantly checked and
updated till it is finalized ("Modularity – OSGi™ Alliance", 2018). Irrelevant data,
incomplete or inadequate data may lead to errors in the next phase that is the development
phase. As an example- For creating a software for senior citizens, unknowingly small fonts

2PRINCIPLES OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
and dark colors are put then old age people will face difficulty in reading the text. This is the
reason why requirements must be clear.
Question c- Case study about failure of an IT project.
A healthcare service company that goes by the name of FoxMeyer was the 5th largest
drug wholesaler in the US (United States). Its annual sales were around 5 billion United
States dollar (Hamrouni, 2018). Around five hundred thousand items were shipped daily. At
that time there was fierce competition and the company needed to make some complex
supply chain decisions. Because of the reasons stated above the company decided to bring in
ERP (Enterprise resource planning) software. ERP is complex software and there is a need to
discuss few points about ERP. ERP is a type of business process management software. It
allows an organization to manage business and automate some function by the use of
integrated applications ("What is ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning? Webopedia", 2018).
Functions are related to services, human resource and technology. Product planning,
manufacturing, development, marketing and sales are all taken care by the Enterprise
resource planning software. This type of software is specifically designed for use by a large
organization. Because of the immense benefits that an Enterprise resource provides
FoxMeyer decided to implement the system. It was expected from company’s end to
eliminate redundant or unnecessary activities, to implement customer services that are more
responsive and finally to set up inventory levels that are appropriate. This was a multimillion
dollar project and was the considered a unique one in the pharmaceutical industry. SAP
implementation for the company was budgeted at 65 million United States dollars. It was
projected that if the enterprise resource system implementation was successful, then it would
save around 40 million United States dollars for the company known as FoxMeyer. The
budget also includes 4 million US dollars for software, 4.8 million US dollars for