Quality Control
Based on G4/Repository filters can be set to check via G4/Analyzer or G4/EAM if standards, norms and/or name-giving conventions are met. Advanced filters take care after dead-code detection, duplicate code detection, uncommented code, max. nesting exceed etc.
Audit & Second Opinion
Incompleteness of functionality of the delivered application software is topic number one in court cases related to SLA’s. Special queries e.g. Logic Mining, DFD, IPO, instantly show if functional requirements are met with the code equivalences presented in application logic.
GAP-Analysis
Standard software packages hardly show completeness with regard to specific client situations. Specific ERP functionality with G4/EAM can widely support demands as they arise. Decision-making and selection processes can greatly improve through GAP-Analysis between existing application functionality and the pretended equivalences in the standard software packages. GAP-Analysis is supported through G4/Elicitor, which can withdraw Business rule logic from existing programs.
Advanced logic-mining functionality accessing the meta-information of G4/Repository can save time for requirements specifications hidden in huge piles of code.
Business rule logic also can be withdrawn and exposed to check specific validation and screening criteria, keeping the integrity of data in newly implemented functionality equal to existing legacy situations.
Project Control
Software development projects are prone to non-linear progress curves. Major cause is the increasing interaction of new components with the already finished ones. Even before the lengthy development cycles are finished, obviously maintenance starts already.
The ERP functionality of G4/Repository, G4/Analyzer and G4/EAM (multi-language) are effective during software development already.
Organizational Joiners & Mergers
Over the last decade many companies joined or merged and scaled up to larger alliances. Reported by Butler Cox and Gartner, legacy applications show a major hurdle. Questions like: which IT-system should be continued can hardly be answered. These and other questions are not only instigated by just politics, but mainly due to non-transparency and complexity of legacy systems.
Practice shows two similar systems run in parallel long after the companies joined or merged.
Cornerstone effectively can help with ERP functionality like GAP-Analysis, Automatic Documentation, Logic Mining and Conversion of the most strategic functionality, to either platform. Alternatively the G4/Sigma based solutions can help selecting the most strategic parts and merge them to the best of breed.
Outsourcing support
The trend of outsourcing nowadays shows drawbacks of not met requirements as set in the SLA. Clients are confronted with much higher cost for functional changes. Outsourcing of deployment and computer production show to be fairly satisfying. This in contrary to any functional control and change in order to keep pace with business demands.
Outsourcing and outsourced companies could greatly improve SLA quality, once processing all applications through G4/Repository. Exact application measures, volume, metrics, complexity rates (McGabe, FPA) prevent wrong expectations set in the SLA. On the other hand, once outsourced the service provider is confronted with the same problem of maintenance, changeability, required impact analysis and change analysis. The ultimate answer to any outsourcing service provider is ERP-like functionality of G4/Repository and G4/Analyzer. In case multi-platform maintenance issues are on, this can be greatly supported by G4/EAM (Enterprise Application Manager). Outsourcing service providers can reduce cost and improve their service level through G4/Repository and related tools.
Test support
Testing can be considerably shortened and improved through Logic Mining. As a matter of fact the program logic of business rules will often cross individual programs and even different platforms. The impact of a field may cross the boundaries of, back-, mid- and front office applications, developed in different programming languages. Cornerstone Technology provides for Logic Mining and Test-Chaining solutions through G4/Repository and G4/Analyzer or G4/EAM (Enterprise Application Manager).
Another effective test-aid is the backward and forward tracing facility for fields/variables.
On integration-test level, Cornerstone provides for G4/CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) matrix and G4/PIOM (Process Input/Output Matrix). Both matrices support selections, exclusions, and inclusions in order to refine test-clusters and exposure of data- or process interfaces.