Abstract This paper describes an intelligent computerized tool designed to aid managers of software development projects in planning, managing and controlling the development process of medium‐ to large‐scale software projects. Systems dynamics is used to model and simulate the dynamic process of software development. The software development process is affected by some imprecise and vague variables that are treated as fuzzy variables. The simulation model is integrated with two expert systems. The fuzzy input variables to the system dynamics simulation model are handled by an input expert system having fuzzy logic. This expert system is designed to check the consistency of input variables. The simulation results are analysed by an output expert system having fuzzy logic. This expert system is designed to make recommendations based on experimentation with the simulation model.

The authors describe an intelligent tool designed to aid managers of software development projects in planning, managing, and controlling the development process of medium- to large-scale software projects. Its purpose is to reduce uncertainties in the budget, personnel, and schedule planning of software development projects. It is based on dynamic models for the software development and maintenance life-cycle process. This dynamic process is composed of a number of time-varying, interacting developmental phases, each characterized by its intended functions and requirements. System dynamics is used as a modeling methodology. The resulting software life-cycle simulator (SLICS) and the hybrid expert simulation system of which it is a subsystem are described.>

The development of human performance models appears to resemble development of expert systems. There are some techniques used by engineering psychologists in building human performance models that could help design expert systems by shortening the knowledge-acquisition process. The procedure used in developing a model is compared with a procedure for designing expert systems. This comparison demonstrates the similarities between the two procedures as well as some of the differences. Suggestions for incorporating system engineering techniques into the expert-system-developing methodology are offered. A human-performance model (HPM) is presented as a case study.>

Most computers utilise several software systems, each needing a certain memory allocation. The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of memory allocation to different software systems on memory utilisation. Adding a new software system causes an increase in memory utilisation. Simulation is used to determine the necessary increase in memory capacity needed to accommodate the addition of a given new software system while keeping the memory utilisation at a desirable level. A simulation of the main memory of the computer system of a large manufacturing organisation is described. The impact of adding a new software package (namely CICS) on average memory usage is analysed.