The automated software development project at McDonnell Aircraft Company (the Software Factory)

The author describes a software engineering environment, the Software Factory, designed specifically for McDonnell Aircraft Company's (MAC's) advanced aircraft projects which must satisfy new requirements for documentation, implementation language, embedded processors, and distributed onboard architectures. The Software Factory is increasing the quality of MAC's avionic software and is increasing the productivity of MAC's avionic software engineers by providing state-of-the-art software development technologies, promoting the use of advanced methodologies, and allowing software managers to understand and control the process through the use of configuration management. The major functional characteristics of the Software Factory, including tools specifically addressing testing and quality assurance, are described.>