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Process Technology Appnote

6.0 Conclusion

RASSP as well as other programs have made significant advances in process methodology and tools. Despite these advances, significant challenges remain to achieve a complete integrated process technology architecture. This is a result of diverse process functions, methodologies, different tools supporting these functions, rapid obsolescence of tools, limited data exchange capability between tools, and limited support for maintenance and reuse of process knowledge.

In additon to development of specific process tools and models, the RASSP program has developed a complete process toolkit concept to address these issues. This concept represents a long term process vision to be implemented on programs or internal projects subsequent to the completion of RASSP. The process technology concept includes the following components or capabilities:

  • Process modeling
  • Scheduling (Finite Capacity)
  • Process simulation
  • Project Management
  • Process analysis
  • Exceptions
  • Workflow management
  • Process Reuse Repository

    • This concept will be implemented using an integrated process toolkit. The architecture for this toolkit is shown in Figure 6 - 1. The toolkit leverages heavily on existing work and commercial tools to provide an integrated capability to address process information representation, exchange and reuse issues. These capabilities will be required to continuously develop faster, cheaper, better products.

    Figure 6 - 1: Process Technology Architecture to Support a Product's Life-cycle

    The concept includes repositories for process information in addition to product data. A process development environment supports generation of new process plans leveraging previous models, while the Process Execution Environment supports implemention and metrics tracking on projects. A more detailed discussion of this architecture is provided in [CHADHA_95].

    In summary, process based approaches provide a basis for an organization to understand its business and provide a framework to continuously improve how that business operates. This is key to understanding the current processes and developing improved business practices. Process technology toolkits allow rapid transition of process models to working systems, presentation of process integrity across applications, and capability to evaluate alternative processes for key parameters such as cost and development. RASSP has made significant progress in development and enhancement of current process tools, which will be further developed toward realization of the complete process toolkit.

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    Approved for Public Release; Distribution Unlimited Dennis Basara