Process software simulation model of Lean-Kanban Approach

LUNESU, MARIA ILARIA

2013-04-23

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Abstract

Software process simulation is important for reducing errors, helping analysis of the risks and for improving software quality. In recent years, the Lean-Kanban approach has been widely applied in software practice including software development and maintenance. The Lean-Kanban approach minimizes the Work-In-Progress (WIP), which is the number of items that are worked on by the team at any given time. It has been demonstrated that such approach can help to improve software maintenance and development processes in industrial environments. The goal of the simulation model itself is to increase the understanding and to support decisions for planning such kind of projects. Considering the threats to validity of the study, the accuracy and reliability of the simulation model could be shown and the simulation model implementation allows for deriving hypothesis on the impact of distribution on parameters such as throughput. In this thesis, we describe our simulation studies, which show that the Lean-Kanban approach can indeed help to reduce the average time needed to complete maintenance or development issues. This simulation model can simulate existing maintenance and development processes that does not use a WIP limit, as well as a maintenance and development processes that adopt a WIP limit. We performed some case studies using real data collected from different projects. The results confirmthat the WIP-limited process as advocated by the Lean- Kanban approach could be useful to increase the efficiency of software maintenance and development, as reported in previous industrial practices.