REPOSITORY EVALUATION OF SOFTWARE REUSE

The traditional unit of analysis and control for software managers is the software project, and subsequently the resulting application syste m. Today, with the emerging capabilities of computer-aided software en gineering (CASE) and corresponding changes in the development process, productivity gains can be realized by reusing portions of the organiz ation's inventory of existing application designs and code. With this opportunity, however, comes the need to monitor software reuse at the corporate level, as well as at the level of the individual software de velopment project. Integrated CASE environments can support such monit oring. We illustrate the use and benefits of repository evaluation of software reuse through an analysis of the evolving repositories of two large firms that recently implemented integrated CASE development too ls. The analysis shows that these tools have supported high levels of software reuse, but it also suggests that there remains considerable u nexploited reuse potential. Our findings indicate that organizational changes will be required before the full potential of the new technolo gy can be realized.