Case Study: Software Product Integration Practices

Organizations often encounter problems in the Product Integration process. The difficulties include finding errors at integration related to mismatch between the different components and problems in other parts of the system than the one that was changed. The question is if these problems can be decreased if the awareness of the integration process is increased in other activities. To get better understanding of this problem we have analyzed the integration process in two product development organizations. One of the organizations has two different groups with slightly different integration routines while the other is basing the development on well defined components. The obstacles found in product integration are highlighted and related to best practices as described in the interim standard EIA-731.1. Our conclusion from this study is that the current descriptions for best practices in product integration are available in standards and models, but are insufficiently used and can be supported by technology to be accepted and utilized by the product developers.