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Calhoun: The NPS Institutional Archive Theses and Dissertations Thesis Collection 1992-12 Information engineering and the Information Engineering Facility verus rapid application development and FOCUS Clark, Lucille Charlotte Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School http://hdl.handle.net/10945/23703 piPT.ASSTFTFn T25/791 IURITY CLASSIFICATION OF THIS PAGE REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE REPORT SECURITY CLASSIFICATION lb RESTRICTIVE MARKINGS UNCLASSIFIED SECURITY CLASSIFICATION AUTHORITY 3. DISTRIBUTION /AVAILABILITY OF REPORT Approved for public release; distribution DECLASSIFICATION / DOWNGRADING SCHEDULE is unlimited. PERFORMING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER(S) 5. MONITORING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER(S) OFFICE SYMBOL 7a. OF MONITORING . NAME OF PERFORMING ORGANIZATION 6b. NAME ORGANIZATION (If applicable) Naval Postgraduate School 53 Naval Postgraduate School ADDRESS {City, State, and ZIP Code) 7b. ADDRESS (City. State, and ZIP Code) Monterey, CA 93943-5000 Monterey, CA 93943-5000 NAME OF FUNDING /SPONSORING 8b OFFICE SYMBOL 9. PROCUREMENT INSTRUMENT IDENTIFICATION NUMftER ORGANIZATION (If applicable) ADDRESS (City. State, and ZIP Code) 10 SOURCE OF FUNDING NUMBERS PROGRAM PROJECT TASK WORK UNIT ELEMENT NO. NO. NO lACCESSION NO. I. TITLE (Include Security Classification) INFORMATION ENGINEERING AND THE INFORMATION ENGINEERING FACILITY VERSUS RAPID APPLICATION DFVFT.nPMF.NT AND FOCUS (UNCLASSIFIED) , I. PERSONAL AUTHOR(S) Clark. Lucille C, 3a. TYPE OF REPORT 13b. TIME COVERED 14 DATE OF REPORT (Year. Month, Day) 15 PAGE COUNT 231 Master's thesis FROM TO December 1992 5. supplementary notation ^ views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not government reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or the U.S. COSATI CODES 18 SUBJECT TERMS (Continue on reverse if necessary and identify by block number) e FIELD GROUP SUB-GROUP E §S Engineering SSffBffiiiMWSiffiSI , I§F? !nfg§ma?f ' Facility, FOCUS, Rapid Application Development, Methodology 9. ABSTRACT (Continue on reverse if necessary and identify by block number) School (NPS) The Management Information Systems Department of the Naval Postgraduate Texas Instrument's is considering using the information engineering methodology with computer-aided software engineering Information Engineering Facility (IEF) , an integrated information toolset, for application development. The costs and benefits of introducing engineering and IEF versus the rapid application development methodology and fourth generation language, FOCUS, were analyzed through a case study developed in both IEF and FOCUS. IEF offers a one model implementation, a standard computerized methodology, consistency checking, management tools for the application developer, and superior diagramming features and screen design whereas FOCUS offers rapid prototyping, numeric functions, a report facility, security within the data model, inherent database management facilities and excellent documentation. The benefits of IEF did not outweigh its respectively costs. RAD and FOCUS were determined to be the methodology and tool of choice for application development for the MIS department. 20 DISTRIBUTION /AVAILABILITY OF ABSTRACT 21. ABSTRACT SECURITY CLASSIFICATION UNCLASSIFIED/UNLIMITED UNCLASSIFIED jjj] SAME AS RPT DTIC USERS 22a NAME OF RESPONSIBLE INDIVIDUAL 22b. TELEPHONE (Include Area Code) *.2c OFFICE SYMBOL 05 Barry A. Frew (408) 646-2392 APR edition DDFORM 1473. 84 mar 83 may be used until exhausted SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF THIS PAGE All other editions are obsolete U.S. OovtrnrrMnt Prlntlni O'flcti IHHei )». UNCLASSIFIED Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. Information Engineering and the Information Engineering Facility verus Rapid Application Development and FOCUS by Lucille Charlotte Clark B.A., Princeton University, 1984 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS from the NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL December 1992 ABSTRACT The Management Information Systems Department of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is considering using the information engineering methodology with Texas Instrument's Information Engineering Facility (IEF), an integrated computer-aided software engineering toolset, for application development. The costs and benefits of introducing information engineering and IEF versus the rapid application development methodology and fourth generation programming language, FOCUS, were analyzed through a case study developed in both IEF and FOCUS. IEF offers a one model implementation, a standard computerized methodology, consistency checking, management tools for the application developer, and superior diagramming features and screen design whereas FOCUS offers rapid prototyping, numeric functions, a report facility, security within the data model, inherent database management facilites and excellent documentation. The benefits of IEF did not outweigh its costs. RAD and FOCUS were determined to be the methodology and tool of choice respectively for application development for the MIS department. nt I a. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION 1 A. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION 1 B. RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1 C. INVESTIGATIVE METHODOLOGY 3 D. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS 4 II. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES AND THE LIFE CYCLE 6 A. DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATIONS 6 B. METHODOLOGY CHARACTERISTICS AND EVALUATION QUESTIONS 9 C. THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT 11 D. THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE (SDLC) AND ITS CRITICS 14 E. PROTOTYPING 21 F. INFORMATION ENGINEERING 28 G. RAPID APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT (RAD) 49 H. A TAILORED AND UNIVERSAL METHODOLOGY 56 III. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TOOLS 59 A. RELATIONSHIP OF A TOOL TO ITS METHOD 59 B. FOURTH GENERATION LANGUAGES 60 IV C. FOCUS 66 D. COMPUTER-AIDED SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (CASE) . 72 E. INFORMATION ENGINEERING FACILITY (IEF) .... 80 F. SUMMARY OF METHODOLOGIES AND TOOLS 88 IV. BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR THE CASE STUDY .... 90 A. MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS' SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT 90 B. MINOR PROPERTY ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS 98 V. EVALUATION 104 A. INTRODUCTION 104 B. INVESTIGATIVE METHODOLOGY 112 C. TOOL EVALUATION 115 1. Data Modeling 116 2. Activity Analysis 131 3. Action Diagramming or Programming 139 4. Dialogue Flow 155 5. Screen/Report Design 165 6. Documentation, Training, and Technical Support 174 D. METHODOLOGY AND TOOL SUPPORT FOR THE METHODOLOGY EVALUATION 176 E. CONCLUSION 187 APPENDIX A: DATA MODELLING 193 APPENDIX B: ACTIVITY ANALYSIS 198 APPENDIX C: PROGRAMMING 201 APPENDIX D: DIALOG FLOW 213 APPENDIX E: SCREEN DESIGN 216 APPENDIX F: IEF SUPPORT FOR INFORMATION ENGINEERING . 218 LIST OF REFERENCES 219 INITIAL DISTRIBUTION LIST 223 VI . I . INTRODUCTION A. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION The Dean of Computer and Information Systems at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is considering using the information engineering methodology with Texas Instrument's (TI) Information Engineering Facility (IEF), an integrated computer-aided software engineering (CASE) toolset for application development. Currently, the programming staff uses a rapid application development (RAD) methodology and the fourth generation language FOCUS. The purpose of this thesis is to determine, through a representative case study, the costs and benefits of introducing information engineering (IE) and IEF versus using the current rapid application- development methodology and tool, FOCUS. The results will determine, in part, which methodology and tool will be used to develop future projects of the Management Information Systems (MIS) Department B. RESEARCH QUESTIONS This thesis does not attempt to devise a radical new approach to application development but rather evaluates how certain methodologies and tools can contribute to the MIS department. It presents an overview of the software development life cycle, the software development environment, and several software development methodologies; an overview of fourth generation languages and computer-aided software engineering (CASE); a specific overview of FOCUS and IEF and the software development environment of the MIS department; and an evaluation of the tools and their associated methodologies based on a case study. The case study consists of a bounded business area of a middle-sized enterprise. A business area is considered to be sufficiently bounded and constrained when (1) the accessed data (2) the processes including their timing and coordination (3) the business relationships with all their intricacies and (4) the business rules and policies affected by the processes and flows are all well known and clearly defined. (Haas, 1991) The business area for the case study is the Minor Property Accountability System and the medium-sized enterprise, the Naval Postgraduate School. The direct and indirect research questions to be answered are the following: 1 . Is it worth the cost and effort to introduce information engineering and CASE as the methodology and tool respectively for a bounded business area for a medium- sized enterprise that uses rapid application development and fourth generation languages? 2 . How does the information engineering methodology with IEF compare to rapid application development with FOCUS in terms of its costs and benefits? 3 . What is the learning curve associated with the Information Engineering Facility (IEF)? 4 . What are some of the effective techniques for evaluating methodologies, tools, and the software development environment? One should not generalize the results of this thesis