2014 8th Malaysian Software Engineering Conference (MySEC)

Maintenance Decision Making in Problem and

Modification Analysis Phase Using a KnowledgeBased Model
Rahma A. Kamaludeen, Yu-N Cheah

Shahida Sulaiman

School of Computer Sciences

Universiti Sains Malaysia
11800 USM Penang, Malaysia.
rahmak@tm.com.my, yncheah@cs.usm.my

Faculty of Computing
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia
81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
shahidasulaiman@utm.my
decision making needs to be undertaken by SMDM. SMDM
comprises of anyone in a position to make decision on
software maintenance of a software system including the
software managers, software engineers, the Change Control
Board (CCB) [3]. These SMDM require SAEM assistance to
make informed decisions on the software maintenance work
required. These SAEM are usually the in-house software
engineers or the vendors who have delivered the software
application in question. The knowledge of this SAEM is
crucial in maintenance of the software application [4].
However, there exist risks that this knowledge could be
lost or inaccessible when necessary due to prolonged absence,
resignation or health related problem of SAEM. Thus, proper
archive of this knowledge is crucial in software application
maintenance. Research too has shown that 40%-60% of the
software maintenance effort is spent in comprehending the
software application [5]. This indicates if the percentage
involve in comprehending the software is reduced, the overall
effort spent in software maintenance is reduced as well.
Reduce effort will reduce overall cost of software
maintenance. Thus, a knowledge based assistant, which has
the maintenance knowledge and gives advice on how to
maintain a software application is necessary to reduce
software maintenance cost and effort.
Knowledge based is implemented using knowledge
management disciplines. Formal definition states knowledge
management as a discipline of identifying, capturing,
retrieving, sharing and evaluating an enterprises information
assets [6]. The goal of this research is to create a maintenance
decision making knowledge-based model to support analysis
in software maintenance. The target users of this knowledgebased model are the SMDM of a software application.

Abstract Software maintenance is an ongoing process during

the lifetime of a software system. Once it is on production the
software application must evolve when new anomalies uncovered
or when new user requirement arises. Prior to any software
evolution, decision making need to be undertaken by the
organizations Software Maintenance Decision Maker (SMDM)
whether to proceed with the evolution required and how to
proceed with the required maintenance. However, the study on
decision making in software maintenance is very limited. Existing
researches focus mainly on project management, software effort
estimation or decision making on software maintenance policy
selection. The uniqueness of this study relies on the ability of
knowledge management method to capture the software
maintenance knowledge of a software application that is inherent
in the Software Application Expert Maintainer (SAEM) mind
and software application specification and use it to support the
software maintenance analysis phase. It is crucial for the
knowledge to be available for the SMDM especially in the event
that the expert software maintainer is not available. This study is
also able to assist Software Application Beginner Maintainer
(SABM) to gain maintenance knowledge of a particular software
application that is available in the knowledge-based decision
making model. This results in shorter time to learn on how to
maintain a software application without the SAEM assistance.
This paper proposes an alternative to the SAEM and software
application specification knowledge through the Maintenance
Decision Making Knowledge-Based (MademKB) Model that can
preserve the maintenance knowledge of a software application to
support software maintenance decision making. The
MADEMKB is evaluated using case study with Malaysian
organization.
Keywordssoftware maintenance; decision making model;
knowledge management

I.

INTRODUCTION

Maintainability per say is defined in the ISO 9126 as A

set of attributes that bear on the effort needed to make
specified modifications. [1] Software maintenance is the
process of maintaining software application. It sustains a
software application or product throughout its operational life
cycle [2]. Prior to any software maintenance implementation,

978-1-4799-5439-1/14/$31.00 2014 IEEE

II. MOTIVATION AND BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM

Software applications are constantly changing according to
the demands of the user who in turn is motivated by the
environment changes in an organization [7]. Thus to ensure
competitive edge and productivity, an organization need to
implement changes as quickly as possible to stay ahead in this

25

competitive era. In order to implement software maintenance

successfully and quickly there are four major problems that
need to be addressed prior to software maintenance namely
[8]:
(i) The codes must be in a structured form.
(ii) The software maintainer must have sufficient
knowledge of the software.
(iii) Documentation absence or insufficiently maintained
documentation.
(iv) Software maintenance itself has a bad image in the
organization.
For example, the first aforementioned problem could be
addressed during the development phase by ensuring the
software application is programmed with a good structured
code but still there exist second to fourth problem, which need
to be addressed. This paper aims to address the second and the
third problem shown above. The second and third problem is
addressed as mention in Section I in this paper by translating
SAEMs expert knowledge and software application
specification knowledge into knowledge-based. This research
believe by addressing problem number two and number three,
problem number four software maintenance bad image could
be salvage into a better image.
If there were no knowledge based decision making model
to support software maintenance analysis, the normal process
requires the SMDM to send the new requirements to the
software experts to study whether the new requirements can be
incorporated into an already running software application. This
could take more than one working day. Later the result is
passed to the SMDM for decision making, by that time the
SMDM might have to hold another separate meeting to dwell
on the decision given by the software experts. This entire
process is time consuming and prone to human errors [9].
In conclusion, the loss and unavailability of important
software experts knowledge or delayed software expert
knowledge will cause unwanted delay in analysing and
implementing software maintenance in an organization, that
might cause lose of productivity in an organization.. This is in
line with the finding that knowledge is important resource that
leads to an organizational success [10]. Thus, it is crucial to
safeguard software maintenance knowledge that is inherent in
the software expert maintainers mind and software application
specification to support decision making in software
maintenance.

decision making method used for software maintenance effort

estimation. This is followed by common attributes of
finalizing decision making on which software maintenance
policy to be used.
These related researches mostly focuses on decision
making on software maintenance effort estimation and
decision making on which software maintenance policy to
take. Whereas this research explores the use of knowledge
based model in predicting the software maintenance resources
needed, what are the action needed, what are the components
involved, what are the component impacted, how many
workdays needed or software effort estimation. The novelty of
this research lies in managing the software maintenance
knowledge inherent in SAEM and software application
specification for software maintenance decision making.
Another obvious element is despite the existence of
several decision making model providing estimation for
project cost, defects, personnel requirement, schedule etc.
These models generate different estimation results for the
same project [11]. So it is unreliable to rely on these existing
estimation model to make decision hence this research have
decided to extract software maintenance decision making
information directly from the software maintainer expert. The
information gained is then translated into usable knowledge
for software maintenance decision making.
TABLE I RELATED PUBLICATION ON SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE BY
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Related
Work
Ballarin et al.
2014 [12]

Main Goal

Metrics Used

Results Portrayed

To propose a dynamic
and real time extraction
of data from software
repositories to support
decision making Italian
Ministry of Economy
and Finance
To propose a
framework for ontology
decision support that
establishes a common
solution platform for
product development
To present the use of
reflective guides
approach in knowledge
management tool

Existing system in the

Italian Ministry of
Economy and Finance
are linked together
with macro-schema to
ease data extraction

Searched item will

render the specific
system to find the
needed information

Manufacturing
measures quality
analyses

Contributes method
to link different type

Reflective guides
journal to record
experiences

Nor et al.
2010 [15]

To present a knowledge
management
framework for
collaborating software
maintenance
environment

Anquetil et
al. 2007 [16]

To adapt related
knowledge extraction
technique to be utilized
in software
maintenance

Rilling et al.
2007 [17]

To establish a formal
process model to
support comprehension
and software
maintenance

Knowledge dimension
of software
maintenance in
relation to people,
process, knowledge
content and
technology in
combination of
ontology
Ontologies are used to
organized knowledge
and post mortem
analysis (PMA)
technique is used to
elicit the knowledge.
Descriptor logic usage
for ontology

A knowledge
management tool
used to capture
software project
experiences from
software expert via
reflective guides
A multi agent
system is proposed
to capture and share
software
maintenance
knowledge

Bhattacharya
et al. 2012
[13]

Matturro and
Silva 2010
[14]

III. RELATED WORK

We have conducted a thorough literature review on
software maintenance decision making. Table I summarizes
the related publication to this thesis on software maintenance
in combination with knowledge management research. This is
followed by Table II, which provides summary on software
maintenance decision making publication. In these tables, the
summary of the main goal of the research, the metrics used
and the results portrayed are given. Next, a brief summary of
the publication is also presented. The right most column of the
table identifies the common attributes of the particular
research to this thesis. The main attributes looked at is the

26

Designed a PMA
method to elicit
software
maintenance
knowledge from
software expert
A formal process
model with formal
ontology to describe
the software
comprehension
process

IV.

TABLE II RELATED PUBLICATION ON SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE

DECISION MAKING
Related
Work

Main Goal

Metrics Used

Sharma
and
Srivastava
2014 [18]

To propose a
generalized approach
towards decision
making for
reengineering legacy
system
To propose sociocultural perspective on
concepts in activities,
the ways in which
software professionals
reach a decision is
unpacked.

Quality value of
software in terms of
maintainability,
portability,
usability, reusability

To use combination of
estimation approach
that combines the
expert estimation
model (Work
Breakdown Structure
(WBS)) with an
analogy based
technique
To propose application
of an evolutionary
algorithm called
LEGAL-Tree for
evolving
decision trees for
predicting software
maintenance effort

Similarity index

Xiong et
al. 2011
[22]

To search for the

optimal maintenance
policy with minimum
maintenance time cost

Failure rate, repair

rate, setup cost, Work
cost

Flix et al.
2010 [23]

To locate best software

maintenance practice
base on software
maintenance maturity
model (S3m)

S3m metrics which

includes process
domain, key process
areas and roadmaps

Tilus et al.
2007 [24]

To present a more
focused treatment of
the application and
evaluation of value
based decision model
(VDM)
To provide a
knowledge-based
system which helps in
locating best practices
in a
software maintenance
capability maturity
model

Economic score and

technical score

Ahonen et
al. 2006
[26]

To make software
system modernization
decision

business value,
obsolescence value,
cost efficiency

Biplav
2004 [27]

To analyze different
project management
choices automatically

Snew:Reuse,Reduce
Sexist:Aware,Upgrade

Brte et
al. 2012
[19]

Gopal and
DSouza
2012 [20]

Basgalupp
et al. 2013
[21]

April et al.
2006 [25]

Planning poker used

as the estimation
method

Adjusted function
points and number of
requirement
documents

Software
maintenance
ontology

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The purpose of this research is to identify and propose a

Maintenance
Decision
Making
Knowledge-Based
(MademKB) model to support software maintenance analysis
phase. This study adopts Design Science Research
Methodology (DSRM) since it is more suitable for software
oriented research especially one with information system [28].
DSRM is also chosen since it allows process iteration that is
important since refinement of previous phase that can be
attempted whenever necessary. DSRM also allows four
research entry point depending on the phase the study is at,
namely problem centred initiation, objective centred initiation,
design and development centred initiation and finally also
allows client and context initiation.
This research conducts an exhaustive preliminary study for
existing knowledge-based decision making model for software
maintenance through the study of the existing papers and
journals pertaining to the similar studies. The expected
outcome of the research guides us on the strength and
weakness of existing models. Then, interviews are conducted
with SMDM of a fifteen identified organization from different
background including government-linked companies, private
owned company, MSC Malaysia Status Company, universities
and multinational companies. The interviews are conducted
to extract the current software maintenance decision making
practice of the organization and the model they use. Later
through an extensive research, knowledge based decision
making model for software maintenance is suggested. This
suggestion is later implemented via a prototype as proof of
concept of this research. Finally, the prototype is used in
evaluation with the previous fifteen Malaysian organizations
to gauge the ease of use and usefulness of the proposed model.
Fig. 1 summarizes the research procedure.

Results
Portrayed
Return on
investment
computation for
the assessment of
reengineering
viability
Contributes to an
understanding of
the role of
concepts in group
work and of
software effort
estimation as a
specific work
practice.
Estimates effort
for new software
development or
maintain an
existing software
system

An evolutionarybased decision
tree can
outperform wellknown and
established
approaches
for decision-tree
induction, as well
as traditional
logistic
regression.
A cost model is
proposed for the
purpose of
quantitative
analysis and ratebased simulation
for minimum
maintenance cost
An expert
interface offers
software experts
the option of
adding new index
words, keywords,
concepts, cases,
themes and
recommendations.
Software
maintenance
should strive
towards high
economical and
technical value.
Contributes in
selecting the best
software
maintenance
capability
maturity model
(S3m) for the
given software
maintenance
problem
A software
system
modernization
decision is
suggested
Metrics
information given
for a specific case

Fig. 1: Research Procedure

27

(ii) The SAEMs expert knowledge for maintenance is also

extracted and combined in the decision tree mentioned
above.
These functional and non-functional data and SAEMs
expert knowledge are collected in a RASIC format. RASIC is
the recommendation given as output by the MademKB model
to the SMDM. The recommendation given by the MademKB
model has the following five important components {R, A, S,
I, C} ( referred to as RASIC throughout this paper), where:
R is the resources needed for the software
maintenance
A is the set of executable actions
S is the set of software components involved in the
maintenance
I is the software component impacted in the software
maintenance work
C is the estimated cost involved in the software
maintenance work.
The given output RASIC will assist the SMDM in making
better software maintenance decisions prior to the actual
implementation of the desired enhancement. These RASIC
serves as a crucial element of the Software Maintenance
Knowledge Documentation (SMKDoc) as well, since it has
important information needed to train a SABM on how to
maintain a particular software application to become the
SAEM of the software application.

V. THE PROPOSED MODEL

This research aims to address the difficulties involved in
making software maintenance analysis by the SMDM
especially without the presence of the respective SAEM of the
particular software system. This is accomplished by
documenting the knowledge of the SAEM and specification of
the software application into a knowledge-based model. The
proposed MademKB model uses the knowledge management
lifecycle with its four steps as its basis namely the Capturing,
Organizing, Refining and Transfer steps [29], however the
MademKB also has one additional step which is the
maintenance of the knowledge-based step. Our proposed
MademKB is portrayed in Fig. 2.

B. MademKB Second layer: Knowledge Codifying Layer

Knowledge codifying layer is where the extracted
knowledge is codified into a form that can be contextualized
further to realize the MademKB model. It has two important
processes as stated below:
(i) Codification of extracted knowledge into decision trees is
carried by the appointed KE. The decision tree portrays
where each functional and non-functional goal is
converted into software maintenance goal. The arcs in the
decision tree represent the steps or rules in the functional
and non-functional specification to arrive at the final
recommendation. The square boxes of the decision tree
have the knowledge identifier that are required in order to
conclude the best recommendation for the maintenance
goal. The leaves of the decision tree represent the actions
that are the RASIC recommendation output suggested by
the knowledge-based model to the SMDM.
(ii) Decision tree verification and validation are then carried
out with the respective SAEM to ensure the validity of the
decision tree prior to contextualization of the knowledge
in the third layer of the MademKB model.

Fig. 2: MademKB Model

The knowledge extraction layer is the basis of this model,

which collects all knowledge pertaining to a software system
using knowledge management capturing techniques. Then this
knowledge is converted to a decision tree at the second layer
of the model using knowledge organization method from
knowledge management life cycle. At the third layer of the
model, the decision tree is converted into software
maintenance decision making logic statements by
contextualizing the knowledge to ease the creation of the
knowledge base. The fourth layer is the knowledge-based
creation layer and finally the fifth layer maintains the software
maintenance knowledge-based tool.
A. MademKB First layer: Knowledge Extraction Layer
The Knowledge extraction is done by the knowledge
engineer. The role of a Knowledge Engineer (KE) could be
undertaken by specially appointed KE or anyone in SMDM
assuming the responsibility of KE. The knowledge extraction
layer of MademKB model has two important processes:
(i) Knowledge is extracted from the software experts and
software documentation in a functional and nonfunctional specification of the software system as
recommended by IEEE specification 830-1998 [30]. The
specification of the software system is drawn in a tree
format for ease of understanding and capturing the data
purposes.

C. MademKB Third layer: Knowledge Contextualizing Layer

Contextualizing is a process to put the knowledge into
context that could be translated into expert-base logics. This
knowledge contextualizing layer has a single process:
(i) Decision tree conversation into software maintenance
logics. Let software maintenance goal labelled as GSM,

28

software maintenance recommendation as RESM ,

software maintenance rules as RUSM and software
maintenance knowledge Indetifier as KISM.

(ii) SMKB tool is tested to avoid any errors and bugs by the
user of the system which includes the KE,SMDM and
SAEM of the software application.

Thus, the software maintenance model is expressed in

mathematical expression as below:
GSM = RUSM U KISM + RESM
(ii) This software maintenance logic serves as a crucial
element of the SMKDoc, since it has important
information needed to train a software maintainer on how
to maintain a particular software application to become
the SAEM of the software application.

E. MademKB Fifth layer: Knowledge-Based Tool

Maintenance Layer
SMKB tool is maintained every time changes are made to
the software application. This is to ensure the changes made to
the software application specification and any new updated
SAEMs knowledge on maintenance is portrayed in the
SMKB tool to ensure it is still valid to be consulted in the
future.

D. MademKB Fourth layer: Knowledge Based Creation Layer

The Knowledge base creation layer is the final layer of the
MademKB model, which has two final processes.
(i) The first layer creates the Software Maintenance
Knowledge-based (SMKB) Tool. Where the software
maintenance logics are programmed into Expert System
Shell. There are many available expert system shell but
we have chosen CLIPS as it is available in public domain
and has the capability to develop powerful industrial
strength expert system. We used CLIPS version 6.3 as it
contains enhancement that allows improvement to
inference logic performance in the event of a bigger
knowledge base [31]. RASIC is the output given by the
MademKB model via the forward chaining rules of the
inference logic. Forward chaining rules uses top-down
reasoning where the goal is reached by following a
condition. In this case, the inference logic has the IFTHEN-ELSE logic programmed into it that allows
processing of the knowledge-based to provide RASIC as
the output. This output is the recommendation given to
support the SMDM in making software maintenance
implementation decision in software maintenance
analysis phase. Fig. 3 shows the pseudocode of the
MademKB model.

VI. EXPECTED RESULT AND CONTRIBUTION

The main research contribution is a software maintenance
knowledge based decision making model, which supports
SMDM in making software maintenance decision in analysis
phase prior to the implementation of software maintenance.
The proposed model furnishes also the following subcontributions:
A documented software experts knowledge that is to be
utilized as a training tool for future SABM
Software experts knowledge mapping approach:
whereby the knowledge of the software experts is
converted into functional and non-functional data which
is translated into decision tree to be coded into
knowledge based model
The software maintenance recommendation given by the
expert-based model
Software maintenance knowledge-based decision making
prototype created as a proof of concept of the suggested
software maintenance model.
A case study of the suggested model with selected fifteen
Malaysian organization
VII. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The MademKB targets to support the SMDM in software
maintenance analysis phase. Once the software maintenance
decision is made, and if the maintenance work can be done for
that particular requirement in question, they engage software
maintainers to carry out the task. Thus, MademKB model
saves both time and cost prior to the actual software
maintenance implementation. The main research contribution
is a software maintenance knowledge-based decision making
model, which supports the SMDM in making decision during
software maintenance analysis phase.
The proposed model also furnishes sub-contributions,
which include the software experts knowledge documentation
referred to as SMKDoc that is to be utilized as a training tool
for future SABM of a software application. The model also
proposes Software experts knowledge mapping approach,
whereby the knowledge of the software experts is converted
into functional and non-functional data that is translated into
decision tree, which in turn is translated into software
maintenance logic to be coded into knowledge based model.
This research also contributes the software maintenance

Let,
Resource, R = {R1,R2, ..Rn}
Action, A = {A1,A2, ..An}
SoftwareModule, S = {S1,S2, ..Sn}
ImpactedModule, I = {I1,I2, ..In}
Cost, C = {C1,C2, ..Cn}
Requirement Changes, RC= {RC1,RC2, ..RCn}
DetailChanges, DC = {DC1,DC2, ..DCn}
Information System, IS = {IS1,IS2, ..ISn}
Priority, P = {P1,P2, ..Pn}
Knowledge-Based = KB
Inference Engine = IE
Recommendation = REC
SMKB-System(IS1, RC1,DCm, Pe)
Start
retrieve KB and IE for IS1 ;
retrieve REC;
REC(R,A,S,I,C) Forward Chaining Rule (RC1,DCm,
Pe);
Return REC;
End
Fig. 3: Pseudocode of MademKB Model

29

[15] M.Z.M.Nor,

recommendation, RASIC given by the knowledge-based

model as output. Finally, a software maintenance expert-based
decision support prototype, SMKB tool is created as a proof
of concept of the suggested MademKB model. The future
work is to modify the existing SMKB tool to include graphical
user interface by merging CLIPS with Java or Visual Basic.

[16]

[17]

ACKNOWLEGMENT
The authors acknowledge MOSTI eScience Fund
(RJ13000.7928.4S065) of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for
supporting this work partially.

[18]

[19]

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