Benchmarking Software Maintenance Based on Working Time

Software maintenance is an important activity on the software lifecycle. Software maintenance does not mean only removing faults found after software release. Software needs extensions or modifications of its functions due to changes in a business environment, and software maintenance also indicates them. In this research, we try to establish a benchmark of work efficiency for software maintenance. To establish the benchmark, factors affecting work efficiency should be clarified, using a dataset collected from various organizations (cross-company dataset). We used dataset includes 134 data points collected by Economic Research Association in 2012, and analyzed factors affected work efficiency of software maintenance. We defined the work efficiency as number of modified modules divided by working time. The main contribution of our research is illustrating factors affecting work efficiency, based on the analysis using cross-company dataset and working time. Also, we showed work efficiency, classified the factor. It can be used to benchmark an organization. We empirically illustrated that using Java and restriction of development tool affect to work efficiency.