Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090300577 | DETERMINING COMPETENCE LEVELS OF FACTORY TEAMS WORKING WITHIN A SOFTWARE FACTORY - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for determining competence levels of factory teams are presented. In a preferred embodiment, the method includes the steps of: creating a template for an initial work packet, wherein the initial work packet is a self-contained work unit that is assembled within the software factory; creating a partially instantiated work packet by populating the template with details that describe pre-conditions and post-conditions necessary to execute the work packet; provisionally selecting a human team to complete coding of the partially instantiated work packet to create a final work packet; determining whether the human team is competent to create the final work packet; and in response to determining that the human team is competent to create the final work packet, ordering the human team to create the final work packet within the software factory. | 12-03-2009 |
20090300586 | STAGED AUTOMATED VALIDATION OF WORK PACKETS INPUTS AND DELIVERABLES IN A SOFTWARE FACTORY - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for staged validation of work packets within a software factory are presented. In one embodiment, the method includes creating a preliminary work packet. A validation constraint is appended to the preliminary work packet to create a constrained work packet. The constrained work packet is submitted to the software factory, within which the validation constraint is validated at different stages to confirm that the validation constraint is proper for the constrained work packet. If a validation result fails to meet all requirements of the validation constraint at each stage, the validation constraint is resolved, and the constrained work packet is re-submitted at that stage. | 12-03-2009 |
20100017252 | WORK PACKET ENABLED ACTIVE PROJECT SCHEDULE MAINTENANCE - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for maintaining a project schedule of projects being executed within a software factory are presented. A project management tool receives alerts from the software factory as completion statuses, of software packets being used within the software factory, change. These alerts enable a consolidated and coordinated updating of the project schedule. | 01-21-2010 |
20100017782 | CONFIGURING DESIGN CENTERS, ASSEMBLY LINES AND JOB SHOPS OF A GLOBAL DELIVERY NETWORK INTO "ON DEMAND" FACTORIES - A method, system and computer-readable medium for utilizing the design centers, assembly line and job shops of a global delivery network across multiple software factories are presented. Pre-qualified factory organizational units in a software factory are identified. Identified qualified factory organizational units, including design centers, assembly lines and job shops, are matched to customer requirements. If the identified qualified factory organizational units are available, then they are load balanced and deployed to create software deliverables to the customer. | 01-21-2010 |
20100023918 | OPEN MARKETPLACE FOR DISTRIBUTED SERVICE ARBITRAGE WITH INTEGRATED RISK MANAGEMENT - A method, system, and computer-readable medium that support an open marketplace for distributed service arbitrage with an integrated risk management is presented. Orders for work packets, which are processed within a software factory, are allowed to be bid upon only by software factories that have been previously ranked by a centralized marketplace portal, thus ensuring that only qualified software factories are allowed to service such orders. | 01-28-2010 |
20100023919 | APPLICATION/SERVICE EVENT ROOT CAUSE TRACEABILITY CAUSAL AND IMPACT ANALYZER - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for identifying root causes of problems in a software factory. Each work packet being executed within the software factory is assigned meta-data, which describes a relationship between that work packet and other work packets, as well as a relationship between that work packet and resources within the software factory. These metrics provides means for identifying any problems within the software factory. | 01-28-2010 |
20100023920 | INTELLIGENT JOB ARTIFACT SET ANALYZER, OPTIMIZER AND RE-CONSTRUCTOR - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for enabling a transition of a business process portfolio of a client to fit with a standardized delivery platform are presented. A tool inputs, analyzes and optimizes a current job artifact set used by an IT organization. This tool identifies; and maps a set of artifacts used by the IT organization to a central meta-model/ontology representation. By dint of mapping the factory artifacts and processes to this meta-model, a user is able to identify equivalent classes among the artifacts and do a one-to-one, one-to-many or many-to-one mapping between the set of client artifacts and the standard artifacts already included in a Software Factory. | 01-28-2010 |
20100023921 | SOFTWARE FACTORY SEMANTIC RECONCILIATION OF DATA MODELS FOR WORK PACKETS - A method, system, and computer-readable medium is presented for maintaining and supporting a semantic reconciliation of canonical data model exchange formats in support of software factory workflow management, state determination governing model transformations, and tool enabled processes across software development roles and methodologies used by a software factory. | 01-28-2010 |
20100031090 | SELF-HEALING FACTORY PROCESSES IN A SOFTWARE FACTORY - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for self-healing a software factory are presented. Factory metrics that describe resources and operations within the software factory are collected and analyzed. If the analysis reveals a significant problem within the software factory, then corrective measures are taken and stored, thus enabling the software factory to evolve and improve over time. | 02-04-2010 |
20100031226 | WORK PACKET DELEGATION IN A SOFTWARE FACTORY - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for utilizing the design centers, assembly line and job shops of a global delivery network across multiple software factories are presented. A work packet is examined to determine if it is authorized to be sub-contracted out to a different design center, assembly line or job shop than the design center/assembly line/job shop that have primary responsibility for the work packet. If the work packet is authorized to be sub-contracted out, then the work packet is reassigned to a different pre-qualified design center/assembly line/job shop. | 02-04-2010 |
20100031234 | SUPPORTING A WORK PACKET REQUEST WITH A SPECIFICALLY TAILORED IDE - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for aiding a user who is servicing a work packet request in a software factory. A full work packet-aware Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is created and sent to the user. This full work packet-aware IDE provides specifically tailored access to all hardware, software, licenses, normative guidance and other resources that are needed by the user to service the work packet request. | 02-04-2010 |
20120245896 | ANALYZING FACTORY PROCESSES IN A SOFTWARE FACTORY - A method, system, and/or computer-readable medium analyzes problems in a software factory. Factory metrics that describe resources and operations within the software factory are collected and analyzed to detect problems that might have occurred during an execution of a work packet within the software factory. If the detected problems exceed one or more threshold criteria, then a detailed analysis of the detected problems is performed by matching each detected problem to one or more specific root causes through an analysis of the factory process building blocks. | 09-27-2012 |
20120284073 | OPTIMIZED COLLABORATION BETWEEN DISTRIBUTED CENTERS OF GLOBAL SERVICE DELIVERY SYSTEMS - A computer implemented method, system, and/or computer program product facilitate optimal collaboration between cells from different service centers for delivering a service to a customer. A cost of collaboration between two cells in different service centers is defined. Each of the two cells is a group of resources capable of executing a same task, and the cost is a 3-Tuple that consists of a monetary cost, a makespan cost, and a skill misalignment cost associated with the collaboration. After establishing acceptable cost ranges for the 3-Tuple based on constraints defined by an enterprise policy, a processor creates multiple collaboration matrices based on different permutations of the 3-Tuple. Once an optimal collaboration function derived from the multiple collaboration matrices is identified, the task is assigned to two optimal cells identified in the optimal collaboration function. | 11-08-2012 |
20120284076 | OPTIMIZING SERVICE DELIVERY SYSTEMS - A computer implemented method, system and/or computer program product optimizes a service delivery system. A processor receives a first set of inputs that describes a current state of a service delivery system and a second set of inputs that describes a cost overhead for the service delivery system. The processor then optimizes the service delivery system in order to derive an optimized service delivery system. | 11-08-2012 |
20120316912 | OPTIMIZING A SHARED SERVICE DELIVERY SYSTEM - A computer implemented method, system, and/or computer program product optimize a shared service delivery system. A model of an existing shared service delivery system is created. Capacity of the existing shared service delivery system is defined according to required resources for existing projects, new projects, and proposed projects. Existing cells of practitioners in the existing shared service delivery system are identified, and any gaps or gluts of capacity in the existing cells of practitioners are identified according to a general predetermined resource requirement for the shared service delivery system. | 12-13-2012 |
20130014081 | SUPPORTING A WORK PACKET REQUEST WITH A SPECIFICALLY TAILORED IDE - A computer-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product supports a user who is servicing a work packet request within a software factory. A tooling environment that is necessary to service a work packet request in a software factory is established. The software factory includes an assembly line that executes work packets to create the deliverable software, and a published set of services that describes what assembly services for assembling the work packets are offered by the assembly line. A full work packet-aware Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that is specific for a work packet identified by the work packet request is created. The full work packet-aware IDE and an associated Graphical User Interface (GUI) are transmitted to a user who has been assigned to service the work packet request, thus allowing resources depicted in the GUI to be interactively supplied to that user. | 01-10-2013 |
20130185693 | WORK PACKET ENABLED ACTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT SCHEDULE - A method for managing projects in a software factory is presented. A project management tool includes an end-to-end project plan for a project to create a software product by using a software factory in a global delivery network. A status block is appended to a work packet that is utilized when executing the project. After initiating the project, an alert is automatically triggered whenever the execution status of the work packet changes. The alert is transmitted to the project management tool to update a project schedule for the project, such that a completion status of the end-to-end project plan reflects a status of a project schedule for the project described by the end-to-end project plan. | 07-18-2013 |
20130263150 | AUTOMATED ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES TO FUNCTIONAL AREAS OF AN ENTERPRISE ACTIVITY ENVIRONMENT - A computer implemented method, system and/or computer program product automatically allocates resources to functional areas of an enterprise activity environment. A skill level of a resource is determined for multiple functional areas. An affinity index is created and associated with each of the multiple functional areas, wherein the affinity index is based on a level of productivity drop of other resources in a specific functional area if the resource is assigned to another functional area. Expected resource and skill level requirements of a project are identified. The resource is automatically allocated to one or more functional areas based on the affinity index associated with a particular functional area in view of the expected resource and skill level requirements. | 10-03-2013 |
20130339970 | WORK PLAN PRIORITIZATION FOR APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT AND MAINTENANCE USING POOLED RESOURCES IN A FACTORY - A computer implemented method, system and/or computer program product schedules execution of work requests through work plan prioritization. One or more work packets are mapped to and assigned to each work request from a group of work requests. A complexity level is derived for and assigned to each work packet, and priority levels of various work requests are determined for each entity from a group of entities. A global priority for the group of work requests is then determined. The global priority and the complexity levels combine to create a priority function, which is used to schedule execution of the work requests. | 12-19-2013 |
20140096105 | DETERMINING COMPETENCE LEVELS OF TEAMS WORKING WITHIN A SOFTWARE - A method, system, and computer-readable medium for determining competence levels of factory teams are presented. In a preferred embodiment, the method includes the steps of: creating a template for an initial work packet, wherein the initial work packet is a self-contained work unit that is assembled within the software factory; creating a partially instantiated work packet by populating the template with details that describe pre-conditions and post-conditions necessary to execute the work packet; provisionally selecting a human team to complete coding of the partially instantiated work packet to create a final work packet; determining whether the human team is competent to create the final work packet; and in response to determining that the human team is competent to create the final work packet, ordering the human team to create the final work packet within the software factory. | 04-03-2014 |