Research Opportunities on the Application of the Theory of Constraints to Software Process Development

摘要

The software development process is a key factor in the efficient production of quality software. Software process improvement has been a constant theme not only in academia but also in the software industry, where countless works have been developed and published. The Theory of Constraints (TOC) was originally proposed by the physicist Eliyahu Moshe Goldratt, in the 80s as a method for the continuous improvement of manufacturing processes. This research aims to survey the academic research on the application of the TOC to the software development process. We also searched for its application to other productive environments in an attempt to visualize approaches that could be adapted to the software development process, such as studies about process optimization, process improvement and process scheduling. The results showed research opportunities both theoretical and practical with application of the TOC in software process development, software process improvement, identification and treatment of bottlenecks in software process, optimization of software process and applications using heuristics, meta heuristics, mathematical models and optimization models.