CASE Tools
Introduction
The CASE tools help streamline and enhance the planning process.
Once the data has been entered into the CASE tools, the
information is available in a form to support a broad range of
analysis for the decision-making process. Much of the information
that has been captured during the planning phase will also be used
during the development and maintenance phase of the system life
cycle.
Evolution of CASE
CASE has been described in four phases which refer to case not as
a set of tools but the catalyst for getting companies to seriously
rethink how they develop and maintain systems.
Observations on CASE Usage Today
Choose a development methodology first ! The foundation of any
CASE tool is a system development methodology. If developers are
not strictly following one methodology, automated tools will not
help much. Once the developers adopt a methodology, there often
seems to be little problem getting the automated tools accepted.
Start using CASE today
Summary
Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools assist in
modeling project functions, information flows, data entities and
other information regarding the proposed system requirements.
Information concerning existing application systems has also been
stored in the CASE tool.
In the early 1980's, CASE referred to stand-alone tools to help
automate program diagramming and documentation. By the mid-1980's
the capabilities of system analysis and design diagramming tools
had broadened to include automatically checking designs. During
this time, the importance of having an information repository,
dictionary, or encyclopedia as the center of a CASE system became
more widely appreciated.
Quality improvements precede productivity increases: documented
development efforts using CASE have shown very few immediate
productivity gains due to the significant amount of education
required. However, the quality of the CASE developed systems has
been higher than expected. CASE developed systems tend to have
fewer analysis and design errors and system testing takes much
less time. In addition systems maintenance has shown significant
reductions due to the ability to make changes to designs rather
than code. It is expected that development productivity will
increase eventually, as developers become more accustomed to using
the tools.
Many companies are currently waiting on CASE since they can not
decide which tools to buy. Since CASE products are constantly
evolving, it is probably not possible to pick the optimal tool
today. But the foundation, development methodology, can be
decided on today. Thus tools and approaches should be selected
and tried out before your company falls further behind.
CASE is a relatively new technology, and there are differing views
on when and where it is best employed. Yet there is consensus
that information systems departments should get started with it,
in one way or another, as soon as possible. CASE tools and
methodologies will change the way we think about systems in the
future. Some progressive companies are already changing how they
think about developing, maintaining and enhancing their systems,
and are finding strategic advantage in doing so.