Practical development of software configuration management for embedded systems: Dissertation

Software production problems have forced industrial organisations producing embedded systems to assess and change the disciplines used to manage the software process. The development of software configuration management (SCM) is one of the solutions for problems concerning new product features. SCM is also one of the software processes that requires improvements. The importance of SCM is clearly understood by producers of embedded systems, but there are difficulties to find the right procedures to apply and further develop SCM in practice. This thesis introduces a descriptive framework for SCM as a part of development of more comprehensive software engineering practices. The SCM framework covers version control, release-oriented and change-oriented SCM. In addition to these SCM-specific procedures, there are CM solutions for other product technologies and for global product management including distribution. The SCM framework has been evaluated and applied in co-operation with several industrial embedded systems manufacturers in the field of mechatronics, space instruments and other electronics applications. The framework can be regarded as a starting point for the further development of a SCM maturity model. The tentative SCM maturity improvement levels are associated with the SCM elements and related logistics processes, such as order/delivery and customer data management. The maturity levels of the improvement range from low-level version control to global product management including parallel solutions of SCM and related elements. The improvement of the SCM process calls for a maturity assessment and improvement procedure. This research describes an inductive procedure, PR2IMER, used in the first experiments as a part of the incremental approach.