Software Factory
Michael A. Cusumano · Encyclopedia of Software Engineering · 2002
Abstract The story of the “software factory” within the field of software engineering is about how companies have attempted to push forward the state of programming practice in order to move beyond loosely organized craft or job‐shop modes of operation that treated each project as unique, to a more structured process and organization for multiple projects. Factorylike approaches have tended to emphasize standardization of development methods and tools, systematic reuse of program components or designs, some divisions of labor and functional departments, and disciplined project management, as well as product quality control. Many firms, led by IBM in the United States, have introduced these and other concepts for large‐scale programming operations but in varying degrees. This discussion focuses on the specific origins of the term “factory” as used in software and the histories of several companies that have explicitly used this term to describe their approaches to managing software development: System Development Corporation (SDC) in the United States, and Hitachi, Toshiba, NEC, and Fujitsu in Japan. The latter part of this article also includes a brief discussion of other factorylike efforts in the United States and Europe.