Missed Opportunities in Software Cost Reduction

The author conducted a survey of the publicly available literature in English on helicopters and relevant software cost estimation as part of an Army-funded project. The purpose of the survey was to ascertain the state-of-the-art and the state-of-the-practice in these areas. We found some excellent work, especially in the area of open software architectures, but also missed opportunities in the areas of reuse, certification, and product line architectures. In this paper, we indicate some opportunities for software cost reduction that can be employed with little initial effort or project reporting overhead. The paper also suggests some ways in which these reductions can be incorporated into cost estimation models.