From: rick@cs.arizona.edu (Rick Schlichting)
Newsgroups: comp.research.japan
Subject: Kahaner Report: Oki Electric's software improvement activities
Date: 12 Aug 92 20:22:25 GMT


  [Dr. David Kahaner is a numerical analyst on sabbatical to the 
   Office of Naval Research-Asia (ONR Asia) in Tokyo from NIST.  The 
   following is the professional opinion of David Kahaner and in no 
   way has the blessing of the US Government or any agency of it.  All 
   information is dated and of limited life time.  This disclaimer should 
   be noted on ANY attribution.]

  [Copies of previous reports written by Kahaner can be obtained using
   anonymous FTP from host cs.arizona.edu, directory japan/kahaner.reports.]

To: Distribution
From: 
 David K. Kahaner
 US Office of Naval Research Asia
 (From outside US):  23-17, 7-chome, Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106 Japan
 (From within  US):  Unit 45002, APO AP 96337-0007
  Tel: +81 3 3401-8924, Fax: +81 3 3403-9670
  Email: kahaner@cs.titech.ac.jp
Re: Oki Electric's software improvement activities
10 August 1992
This file is named "oki-sw.92"

ABSTRACT. Oki Electric's software improvement activities are summarized.

In a recent report ["oki-ps", 9 May 1992] I described some of the 
software production research that was going on at Oki Electric. The 
techniques that large Japanese software producers use to address problems 
of creating, managing, and maintaining software is clearly of interest to 
others.  A recent book, 

       Japan's Software Factories
       Michael A. Cusumano
       Oxford University Press, 1991

contains many anectodal descriptions of how this is done in Japan.  
Scientific readers of my reports should note that the largest software 
products, containing millions, or even tens of millions of lines of 
source program text are often found outside the technical arena, in 
securities, insurance, and other financial industries. Communication, and 
command and control software can also be massive.  

Recently, I was accompanied by
   Mr. Allan Willey     
   Motorola, Inc.
   Cellular Infrastructure Group 
   1501 W. Shure Drive
   Arlington Heights, IL 60004
    Tel: 708-632-4748; Email: willey@mot.com
on a visit to Oki to hear about their recent efforts firsthand.  

(Oki was not one of the companies that Cusumano details in his book.) 
Motorola is obviously interested in software management, as very large 
fractions of the value added aspects of their cellular telephone 
infrastructure are due to to software. Mr. Willey commented that 
companies are looking for ways to reduce the dependence on software 
"stars", because of the high risks for individual organizations (people 
leave, become ill, etc.).  They are also trying to verify and understand 
Japanese software developers claims of productivity improvements of 10% 
annually.  

I wish to thank Mr.Willey for his summary of this visit which I have 
merged into the report below.  

For those not familiar with Oki, this was Japan's first private 
telecommunications manufacturer, and produced a prototype telephone in 
1881, barely five years after Bell's invention. Last year Oki had sales 
of 661Billion Yen, close to $5Billion US, and has slightly more than 
20,000 employees. Oki has three main business activities, 
Telecommunication Systems, Information Processing Systems, and Electronic 
Devices. They are one of the largest manufacturers of telemetry and 
telecontrol equipment, including aircraft and marine control systems. 
They are also leaders in navigation systems for automobiles as well as 
for marine applications. The Japanese submersible Shinkai is equipped 
with Oki developed acoustic navigation systems and underwater imaging 
systems. 

Software activities are associated with many aspects of Oki's business, 
but especially with communication software such as PBX, networks, 
switching systems, ATM systems, etc., much of which must work in real-
time. We were told that a recent product had about 1.2 million lines of 
code, and another PBX software project had 400,000 lines. Oki currently 
has about 6,000 employees that they consider software engineers (Willey 
explained that the corresponding figure for Motorola is about 8,000).  

We visited the research of Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd. at:
        10-3, Shibaura 4-Chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108, Japan
and were hosted by

        Mr. Yasufumi Nanae
        Director
        General Manager,
        Corporate Software Planning & Engineering Div.

        Mr. Teruo Uchida
        General Manager
        Software Production Engineering Center
        Corporate Software Planning & Engineering Div.

        Ms Atsuko Fujitaka
        Planning Staff
        General Planning Office
        Mobile Communication Systems Group
         Tel: +81 3-3454-2111 ext 2036 or +81 3-3798-4618 (direct)
         Fax: +81 3-3798-7685


Willey presented an overview of Motorola's activities and a general 
summary of an earlier Motorola-team trip that he made to Japan to study 
software production methods.  Mr. Nanae, who also had a copy of Michael 
Cusumano's book, expressed his opinion that the Motorola teams's overall 
findings with respect to the companies they visited in Japan were 
essentially the same as those Dr. Cusumano expressed in his book.  
He also confirmed that measured software productivity improvements were
ranging 7-13% annually, but that such gains would not continue without
new tools.  Willey feels that what is now needed is to look beyond the
now-famous "software factories" described by Cusumano to discover what
else is happening in Japanese software.

Mr. Uchida presented materials describing "OPEN'S" (Oki Software 
Production Environment Enhancement Strategy).  Essentially, he presented 
an update to materials which were originally presented in May, 1991 in 
the OKI Technical Review, which was summarized in the report mentioned 
above.  

About Oki's software improvement strategy:
------------------------------------------

Mr. Nakae reported that in April of this year he had been appointed to 
his current position as General Manager, Corporate Software Planning & 
Engineering Div. at Oki.  This was a newly-created position to serve as 
the focus for software improvements.  He was responsible for the Software 
Production Engineering Center operated by Mr. Uchida, and also for the 
technical training and education program for software professionals in 
Oki.  

Willey concludes that this indicates that Oki, like many other major 
Japanese corporations engaged in software development, has made a 
decision to commit significant resources to improving their software 
production resources.  As a Oki corporate Director, Mr. Nakae would have 
significant visibility, and appears to have been given a charter with 
enough resources to make it happen. For example, we were told that Oki's
goal is one workstation for each engineer.

About OPEN'S:

Oki has a very ambitious long-term plan to develop appropriate 
environments for its software engineers.  It is clear that several years 
thought have gone into the evolution on the ideas contained in OPEN'S, 
and real corporate commitment exists.  

=======================================================================
        OKI's Presentation materials covered the following
=======================================================================
        OPEN'S Goal:
        Establishment of Advanced Software Engineering Environment
        - Distributed and Seamless Environment
        - Effective Management
        - Improvement of Information Services
        OPEN for OKI group
        OPEN architecture
        OPEN mind for users

---------------------------------

        OPEN'S is built on the SENNA Model (Software engineering
                ENvironment and Network Architecture)
        
Oki provided us a graphic which demonstrated a three-dimensional view of 
an environment for engineers.  

The SENNA Model resembles in many respects MCC's Leonardo--in fact, Les 
Belady has clearly had a significant impact on their thinking.  (Belady 
has an article on Leonardo in the Oki Technical Review mentioned above.) 
Willey worries that "we seem to be in danger here of having the good 
ideas we paid to have MCC develop for us used by our global competitors 
before we have effectively implemented them ourselves." 

---------------------------------

        OPEN'S features a "development support system"
        The "development support system" is tailored for four "styles"
      1.- "Universal" Method Environment        :Constructing with
                                                 general purpose concepts
      2.- "Reuse" Method Environment            :Customizing (Modifying)
                                                 similar systems
      3.- "Mass-Production" Method Environment  :Domain (Target)-
                                                 specific Automated System
      4.- "Porting" Method Environment          :Porting to other machines

While Oki talked about the different "Method Environments" that would be 
supported using the SENNA Model tailored for these "styles," our 
impression was that these were conceptual, and had not yet, in fact, been 
implemented for many of Oki's software developers.  

We were given some examples of the kinds of projects that each of the 
four styles would be used for. No.1 for medium-sized projects such as 
switching or transmission systems, No.2 for navigation systems and to 
bring together various banking modules, No.3 for ATM systems, and No.4 
for porting an operating system to an Oki-developed workstation.

---------------------------------

        Two specific "Method Environments" were described briefly.

(1) SDL Method Environment

SDL (Specification & Design Language) is a CCITT-supported ISO Standard 
high-level language particularly applicable for key aspects of 
telecommunications (where a state machine controller is required).  As 
Oki is in the telephone switching business, where such applications are 
common, it is not surprising that they would plan such an environment.  

While the overview of the SDL Method Environment was very high-level, it 
appears that they are well along in creating an environment in which the 
SDL specification can be turned into C++ via an automated code generator.  

We were told that a manuscript describing this activity was to be 
presented Oct'92 at the International Switching Symposium in Yokohama 
Japan.


(2) Structured Method Environment

This "environment" seemed much less advanced than the SDL Method 
Environment in two ways.  First, it appears that what they are attempting 
to do is create a "framework" into which to "glue" a set of commercially-
available tools.  Little creative work seems to be going on to either 
develop internal tools, or to enhance the functionality of the tools 
purchased through efforts to carry out a through-designed implementation.  
Second, the use of Structured Methods for software engineering is now 15 
years old, and is "behind the times" when compared with current object-
oriented (C++ vs C) applications development efforts.  

---------------------------------

SUMMARY

Oki is committed to improving the productivity of their software 
engineers. They have a long-term plan, and have allocated significant 
resources. Their plan looks much like MCC's Leonardo, but is early in 
its implementation phase.  

----------------------------END OF REPORT-------------------------------