The Finnish software industry responds to the challenge of the Far East
Methods developed by VTT improve working efficiency and product quality of software companies

VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland) has developed new methods that enable European software companies to improve their working efficiency and also the quality of their software products. With the new methods companies have been able to reduce the time needed for analysing product requirements by as much as 75 per cent. There has also been a 30 per cent drop in the number of urgent defect reports in client feedback. Such improvements make it possible to compete against what the Far East has to offer.

According to Janne Järvinen, Director R&D at Solid Information Technology, VTT has done valuable work in developing methods to facilitate the application of software development techniques. High resolution image (648 Kb) Photo: Vilho Raatikka

One of the problems in software development has been the great variety of available technologies. It is practically impossible for companies to make enough time for comparing the available methods, techniques and tools. During the project, VTT specialists studied the needs that companies face in their day-to-day business. The companies that participated in the project had full access to examples of over 100 best software development practices developed in cooperation with 30 companies.

Solid Information Technology is a provider of data management solutions for the telecommunications industry. The company confirms that by using the methods developed with VTT one of their development teams was able to reduce the time required to analyse and prioritise the requirements of a product from the prior two full days to just half a day. The quality of both the work and the product were also improved: the number of critical defects reported by clients decreased by 30 per cent.

VTT, University of Oulu, Tekes, Solid and Nokia participated in the MOOSE project. The project was part of a larger European-wide development project for software technologies involving several top-level research institutes and companies. The results of the project are practical and have served the companies well, and they have already led to another European project, aiming to develop even better practices for networked production in the field of software.

More information: www.mooseproject.org

VTT Electronics Päivi Parviainen, Senior Research Scientist Tel. +358 20 722 2471, +358 40 746 7198 paivi.parviainen@vtt.fi	Solid Information Technology Corp. Janne Järvinen, Director R&D Tel. +358 4 248 8881, +358 40 754 4738 janne.jarvinen@solidtech.com