ERP Software Inspections and Audits

Erp Software Inspections

Software inspection is a process carried out manually in the early stages of the software development cycle by a group of peers on code and software artifacts developed by other developers. Software inspection requires human effort and is deemed to be very cost-effective, since it leads to defects being removed before they enter the phases of implementation or maintenance. The regular application and success of inspections in the software industry have led to suggestions for its introduction to ERP software. Barhate (2012) states that software inspection was first invented by M. Fagan at IBM in 1976 and has since been improved and adapted by many major software companies. ERP software inspection is a technique that can be used to achieve quality control for the source code and for identifying associated process improvements. It is part of quality assurance in the software development process performed by people i.e. reviewers and complements automatic checking tools. ERP software inspections involve careful examination of its code and other software artefacts, checking them for characteristics that are known to be problematic from past experiences. It is a formal process involving labour intensive and manual analysis techniques that are applied to code documents in the early stages of the software development. Inspections are non-execution-based meaning that the inspector does not have to compile or execute the code during the examination; and such inspections are carried out at the beginning of the development cycle of the ERP projects to identify and remove potential problems since fixing them in these early stages is least expensive. Inspections are recommended to be carried out before the first compile or test in order to ensure quality ERP products (Harjumaa, 2005).