Structured design benefits to a process control software project

Abstract

A 12-man-year process control software project has been successfully completed in 12 months without interruption of the production process of CERN PS accelerators. After 6 months of careful preparation by a small team, 9 man-years of software, i.e. around 100 control programs amounting to more than 40'000 instructions, have been produced in 6 months by 6 experienced full-time software engineers and 24 part-time engineers and technicians, part of whom had never programmed before. The delivered product met the users specifications, was completed within schedule, conformed to the standards and was fully documented.