Software maintenance costs

Key operational components of an information technology plan include provision for maintenance of current systems. Software maintenance costs alone can typically run from 18 to 22 percent of software list prices and the qualified human resources necessary to support installed systems. Typically, information technologies in health care systems are either undeiihinded or place an unreasonable emphasis on administrative systems. An allocation of iq) to 6 percent of the annual operating budget for information systems is not unrealistic. A summary of contemporary infoimation systems is included in the Table 37.3. 

Note The costs of implementing this fictitious analyzer have not been included in the value calculation, though it is a critical aspect. The costs would include hardware, software, facility modifications, personnel time, travel, and ongoing maintenance costs (including the analyzer technician s time) over the expected analyzer lifetime. 

It seems that self-made software, for a chromatograph or for anything else, whether developed from scratch or assembled, tends to be poorly documented. If the software is documented, the documentation is not maintained. Either situation, when coupled with personnel turnover, can and does lead to costly long-term software maintenance. 

The main business reasons to validate computer systems are to demonstrate conformance with the system requirements specification, to increase acceptance of the systems by end-users, and to avoid high maintenance costs. Regarding maintenance costs, Figure 2-2 depicts the relative cost in 1976 of repairing software. At present, the proportions are similar. The longer a defect is uncovered, the more expensive it is to repair. 

The effect that verification and testing activities have on financial resources is noticeable. A potential saving of 50% on software maintenance can make a sizeable impact on overall life cycle cost. 

Early approaches to fault diagnosis were often based on the so-called physical redundancy [11], i.e., the duplication of sensors, actuators, computers, and softwares to measure and/or control a variable. Typically, a voting scheme is applied to the redundant system to detect and isolate a fault. The physical redundant methods are very reliable, but they need extra equipment and extra maintenance costs. Thus, in the last years, researchers focused their attention on techniques not requiring extra equipment. These techniques can be classified into two general categories, model-free data-driven approaches and model-based approaches. 

If a major chemical or pharmaceutical company already has one or more of the better known software packages, it will be difficult to convince these companies that they need yet another one. Not only are some of the products extremely expensive to acquire, they also have high overhead in terms of maintenance costs. Moreover, customers generally have had to invest much time... 

From the above description, we may conclude that flowsheeting software is a very sophisticated computer-based system, and not a collection of algorithms for solving different unit operations. A process simulator must be designed with computer science development and management tools. It is interesting to note that in the total cost the software maintenance (typically more than 70 %) is by far more important than the cost of programming (typically under 10 %). 

Whether automatic or advanced instrumentation really saves money is difficult to say. Initially the equipment costs more, but this is offset by a saving in labor. However, the old adage that if a thing can go wrong it will remains true, and maintenance costs of complex equipment are high. Finally, the calibration of such equipment can be difficult, and the software that so readily transforms the data can give rise to concern as to what has happened between the transducer and the final output. 

Software Maintenance is a costly activity consuming 50% of all computer and IT resources. It has been shown that maintenance costs can be up to 10 times those of an initial development. 

Despite the cost implications, software maintenance is generally perceived as having a low profile within the software community. Management teams have often in the past placed little emphasis on maintenance-related activities. Small advances have been made in combating these problems, and high-profile maintenance projects such as the year 2000 problem have been successful at highlighting the issues. 

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