IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ormnsc/v43y1997i12p1709-1725.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Field Study of Scale Economies in Software Maintenance

Author

Listed:
  • Rajiv D. Banker

    (School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas 75083-0688)

  • Sandra A. Slaughter

    (Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213)

Abstract

Software maintenance is a major concern for organizations. Productivity gains in software maintenance can enable redeployment of Information Systems resources to other activities. Thus, it is important to understand how software maintenance productivity can be improved. In this study, we investigate the relationship between project size and software maintenance productivity. We explore scale economies in software maintenance by examining a number of software enhancement projects at a large financial services organization. We use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to estimate the functional relationship between maintenance inputs and outputs and employ DEA-based statistical tests to evaluate returns to scale for the projects. Our results indicate the presence of significant scale economies in software maintenance, and are robust to a number of sensitivity checks. For our sample of projects, there is the potential to reduce software maintenance costs 36% by batching smaller modification projects into larger planned releases. We conclude by rationalizing why the software managers at our research site do not take advantage of scale economies in software maintenance. Our analysis considers the opportunity costs of delaying projects to batch them into larger size projects as a potential explanation for the managers' behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Rajiv D. Banker & Sandra A. Slaughter, 1997. "A Field Study of Scale Economies in Software Maintenance," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(12), pages 1709-1725, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:43:y:1997:i:12:p:1709-1725
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.43.12.1709
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.43.12.1709
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/mnsc.43.12.1709?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:43:y:1997:i:12:p:1709-1725. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.