Jim Arlow&, Sergio Bandinelli#, Wolfgang Emmerich* and Luigi
Lavazza+
& British Airways Plc, TBE (E124),
Viscount Way, Hounslow, UK
Jim.Arlow at btinternet.com
# ESI
Parque Tecnologico, 204
48170 Bizkaia, Spain
Sergio.Bandinelli at esi.es
* Dept. of Computer Science,
City University,
Northampton Square,
London, EC1V 0HB, UK
we at city.ac.uk
+ Politecnico di Milano
and CEFRIEL
Via Emanueli 15
20126 Milano, Italy
lavazza at mailer.cefriel.it
Abstract:
We report on the experimental application of process technology that we
did at British Airways (BA) as part of the GOODSTEP project. The goal of
GOODSTEP was to enhance and improve the functionality of an object database
management system (ODBMS) to yield a platform suited to the construction
of process-centred software engineering environments (PSEEs). These enhancements
were exploited and validated by the construction of the GOODSTEP framework
for PSEE construction, which includes the SPADE software process toolset.
We used the process modeling language SLANG to model BA's C++ class library
management process, and we constructed an experimental PSEE based on SPADE.
BA required processes to be automated at a finer degree of granularity
than that of tool invocation. We have demonstrated that SLANG and SPADE
offer the basic mechanisms for modelling these fine-grained processes.
We have also shown that it is feasible to generate tools for dedicated
processes and integrate them within a SLANG model so as to facilitate fine-grained
process automation. However, our experience highlighted some open
problems. For instance, SLANG process models are tuned to efficient enactment,
thus containing very detailed process fragments. These are not the most
appropriate representations for humans trying to understand the process
model. Although the airline did not deploy the PSEE in its production environment,
the experiment proved beneficial for BA because the modelling activity
itself uncovered serious flaws in the existing process.
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Updated on: 31/07/97
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