The document discusses the role of reliability growth models in software quality management, highlighting their utility in assessing and improving product quality during development. It outlines five key activities involved in a Quality Improvement Process (QIP), including blitz testing and customer evaluations, which delayed the product shipment by one month but ultimately led to the identification and removal of over 250 field defects. Consequently, the overall field quality of the product showed significant improvement over the years.

1. Software Quality Management
Unit
U – IV
Roy Antony Arnold G
y y
Asst. Prof. / CSE

2. • Alth h reliability growth models are meant
Although li bilit th d l t
for reliability assessment, they are also
useful for quality management at the
back end of the development process.
• Models developed from a previous product or
a previous release of the same product can be
used to track the testing defects of the
current product.
d
• To have significant improvement, the defect
arrival rate ( f il
i l t (or failure d i ) of the
density) f h
current project must fall below the model
curve.
curve

6. • The QIP involved five extra activities:
1. Blitz testing — "artistic" testing in stressful
environments.
2. Customer evaluation — customers conducting
testing in the development laboratory.
3.
3 Code inspections — additional inspections of
error-prone modules, especially routines that are
difficult to test such as the error
recovery/exception h dli routines.
/ ti handling ti
4. Design reviews — re-review of designs of suspect
components and modules.
p
5. Extension of system test — improvement of test
suites and extension of testing schedules to allow
thorough final test execution.

9. • Because of the special QIP activities, the
p
product ship date was delayed one
p y
month.
• As a result more than 250 field defects
result,
were found and removed.
• The field quality of the product, evidenced
by field defect arrivals reported in later
y p
years, improved significantly.