CONFIGURING DESIGN CENTERS, ASSEMBLY LINES AND JOB SHOPS OF A GLOBAL DELIVERY NETWORK INTO "ON DEMAND" FACTORIES

• US 20100017782A1
• Filed: 07/15/2008
• Published: 01/21/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: RATAKONDA, KRISHNA C., CHAAR, JARIR K., HUCHEL, JOSEPH P., JOBSON, THOMAS A. JR., OPPENHEIM, DANIEL V.
• Granted Patent: US 8,527,329 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/101
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A method, system and computer-readable medium for utilizing the design centers, assembly line and job shops of a global delivery network across multiple software factories are presented. Pre-qualified factory organizational units in a software factory are identified. Identified qualified factory organizational units, including design centers, assembly lines and job shops, are matched to customer requirements. If the identified qualified factory organizational units are available, then they are load balanced and deployed to create software deliverables to the customer.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of utilizing design centers, assembly lines and job shops across multiple software factory configurations, the computer-implemented method comprising:

launching a project, wherein the project comprises designing and delivering a software deliverable utilizing work packets, and wherein the work packets are self-contained work units that are assembled within a software factory;

identifying pre-qualified factory organizational units in a global delivery network by establishing a competence of a design center, an assembly line and a job shop within the global delivery network, wherein the assembly line and job shop are composed of one or more software engineers;

checking for compatibility and performance characteristics of one or more of the factory organizational units to create and deliver a software deliverable to a customer;

matching organizational unit capabilities of each design center, each assembly line and each job shop with customer requirements, wherein the customer requirements are pre-specified requirements established by the customer, and wherein the customer requirements describe capabilities and experience levels of each design center, each assembly line and each job shop, that are mandated by the customer;

checking for availability and capacity of organizational units that meet the customer requirements;

in response to requisite organizational units being available, configuring and deploying one or more software factories by sending appropriate notifications to individual organizational units, and enabling the individual organizational units with automated processes, an integrated tooling platform, and an information technology infrastructure needed to run such processes and tools in a global delivery network, wherein the IT infrastructure includes servers, storage, desktops, laptops, communication networks; and

dynamically load balancing resources between multiple software factory organizational units by swapping resources between software factories of a global delivery network.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein a first pre-qualified factory organizational unit is a human team identified as an assembly line, wherein the assembly line is part of a job shop, wherein the assembly line and job shop implement, assemble and test a deliverable that is created from the work packets.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein a second pre-qualified factory organizational unit is a design center, wherein the design center comprises a requirements analysis team and an architecture team, wherein the requirements analysis team collects business requirements from customer lines of business and populates these business requirements into software tools required to create software deliverables, wherein the architecture team takes an output from the requirements analysis team and applies architectural decision factors to model a design for the software deliverables, releases the work packets, and ensures the capabilities of the assembly lines and job shops match work packet requirements.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein determining a competence of the human team is based on a database-stored measurement of experience and expertise levels of each member of the human team.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 4, wherein determining a competence of the human team is further based on a database-stored measurement of on-time performance level of the human team on past work packet coding projects.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 5, wherein determining a competence of the human team is further based on a database-stored current time availability of all members of the human team.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, further comprising:

determining a competence of multiple human teams; and

selecting a most competent human team from the multiple human teams, wherein the most competent human team has a combined experience level of team members, a combined expertise level of the team members, and a current team time availability that match performance parameters needed to complete the final work packet.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 7, wherein executing the work packets comprises receiving declarative specifications of the work packets before compiling and processing the work packets, wherein the declarative specification describes characteristics and attributes of the work packets.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 8, wherein operations within the software factory further comprise:

collecting a plurality of software artifacts that have been archived during an assembly of previous work packets;

collecting a plurality of metrics that have been utilized during the assembly of previous work packets;

defining a template for a new work packet, wherein the template for the new work packet is created by a packet definition process that defines attributes that are needed in the new work packet;

under a control of the packet definition process, selecting requisite software artifacts from the plurality of software artifacts;

under the control of the packet definition process, selecting requisite metrics from the plurality of metrics; and

sending the template, requisite software artifacts and requisite metrics to a packet assembly process, wherein the packet assembly process assembles, under the control of the template and the requisite metrics, the requisite software artifacts to create the new work packet.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 9, wherein the software factory further comprises:

a software factory governance section that evaluates a project proposal for acceptance by the software factory; and

an assembly line and job shop that receive and execute the work packets to create the deliverable software.

11. The computer-implemented method of claim 10, wherein the assembly line further comprises:

a published set of services and a published set of requirements for the assembly line and job shop, wherein the published set of services and the published set of requirements for the assembly line and job shop are published to the design center, and wherein the published set of services describes what assembly services for assembling work packets are offered by the assembly line and job shop, and wherein the published set of requirements describes what execution environment must be used by work packets that are provided by the design center for assembly in the assembly line and job shop.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the work packets include governance procedures, standards, reused assets, work packet instructions, integration strategy, schedules, exit criteria and artifact checklist templates for Input/Output routines.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 12, wherein the assembly line and job shop includes software that automatically recognizes a project type for the project proposal, and wherein the assembly line and job shop assembles the work packets into the deliverable software in accordance with the project type that is recognized by the assembly line and job shop.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 13, wherein the assembly line and job shop conduct an integration test, a system test, a system integration test and a performance test of the deliverable software, wherein the integration test tests the deliverable software for compatibility with the client'"'"'s system, the system test checks the client'"'"'s system to ensure that the client'"'"'s system is operating properly, the system integration test tests for bugs that may arise when the deliverable software is integrated into the client'"'"'s system, and the performance test tests the deliverable software for defects as it is executing in the client'"'"'s system.

15. A system comprising:

a processor;

a data bus coupled to the processor;

a memory coupled to the data bus; and

a tangible computer-usable medium on which is stored computer program code, the computer program code comprising instructions executable by the processor and configured for utilizing design centers, assembly lines and job shops in a global delivery network across multiple software factories by performing the steps of;

launching a project, wherein the project comprises designing and delivering a software deliverable utilizing work packets, and wherein the work packets are self-contained work units that are assembled within a software factory;

identifying pre-qualified factory organizational units in a global delivery network by establishing a competence of a design center, an assembly line and a job shop within the global delivery network, wherein the assembly line and job shop are composed of one or more software engineers;

checking for compatibility and performance characteristics of one or more of the factory organizational units to create and deliver a software deliverable to a customer;

matching organizational unit capabilities of each design center, each assembly line and each job shop with customer requirements, wherein the customer requirements are pre-specified requirements established by the customer, and wherein the customer requirements describe capabilities and experience levels of each design center, each assembly line and each job shop, that are mandated by the customer;

checking for availability and capacity of organizational units that meet the customer requirements;

in response to requisite organizational units being available, configuring and deploying one or more software factories by sending appropriate notifications to individual organizational units, and enabling the individual organizational units with automated processes, an integrated tooling platform, and an information technology infrastructure needed to run such processes and tools in a global delivery network, wherein the IT infrastructure includes servers, storage, desktops, laptops, communication networks; and

dynamically load balancing resources between multiple software factory organizational units by swapping resources between software factories of a global delivery network.

16. A tangible computer-readable storage medium encoded with a computer program, the computer program comprising computer executable instructions configured for:

launching a project, wherein the project comprises designing and delivering a software deliverable utilizing work packets, and wherein the work packets are self-contained work units that are assembled within a software factory;

identifying pre-qualified factory organizational units in a global delivery network by establishing a competence of a design center, an assembly line and a job shop within the global delivery network, wherein the assembly line and job shop are composed of one or more software engineers;

checking for compatibility and performance characteristics of one or more of the factory organizational units to create and deliver a software deliverable to a customer;

matching organizational unit capabilities of each design center, each assembly line and each job shop with customer requirements, wherein the customer requirements are pre-specified requirements established by the customer, and wherein the customer requirements describe capabilities and experience levels of each design center, each assembly line and each job shop, that are mandated by the customer;

checking for availability and capacity of organizational units that meet the customer requirements;

in response to requisite organizational units being available, configuring and deploying one or more software factories by sending appropriate notifications to individual organizational units, and enabling the individual organizational units with automated processes, an integrated tooling platform, and an information technology infrastructure needed to run such processes and tools in a global delivery network, wherein the IT infrastructure includes servers, storage, desktops, laptops, communication networks; and

dynamically load balancing resources between multiple software factory organizational units by swapping resources between software factories of a global delivery network.

17. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein a first pre-qualified factory organizational unit is a human team identified as an assembly line, wherein the assembly line is part of a job shop, wherein the assembly line and job shop implement, assemble and test a deliverable that is created from the work packets.

18. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein a second pre-qualified factory organizational unit is a design center, wherein the design center comprises a requirements analysis team and an architecture team, wherein the requirements analysis team collects business requirements from customer lines of business and populates these business requirements into software tools required to create software deliverables, wherein the architecture team takes an output from the requirements analysis team and applies architectural decision factors to model a design for the software deliverables, releases the work packets, and ensures the capabilities of the assembly lines and job shops match work packet requirements.

19. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the computer-readable storage medium is a component of a remote server, and wherein the computer executable instructions are deployable to a supervisory computer from the remote server.

20. The tangible computer-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the computer executable instructions are capable of being provided by a service provider to a customer on an on-demand basis.