Impact of task priority on software supply chain : a simulation approach

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of the role of the bottlenecks in the dynamic software development supply chains. The paper examines the effects of the task priorities in the software development and investigates the possible strategies to manage them effectively. Design/methodology/approach: In this paper, a software development supply chain has been simulated. This includes modeling of the various sizes of software requirement, different priorities, variations in development times, quality defects, etc. The model assumes a fixed set of resources of various skills. The model is studied for the bottlenecks, throughput, work in progress (WIP), etc. under various work preemption scenarios. Findings: The results indicate that job priorities impact the bottleneck formulation, throughput and WIP of the software development. The work interruption policies to accommodate priority jobs adversely impact the throughput. Selective introduction of interruptions by leaving the bottlenecks from interruptions helps balancing the throughput and priorities. Research limitations/implications: The impact of the learning curve and knowledge acquisition time needed by the resources to restart the interrupted work has not been considered in this paper, which can be a future area of research. Practical implications: The paper helps the practicing managers evaluate the dynamics of the bottlenecks with various task management approaches and comprehend the possible tradeoffs between priority and throughout. Originality/value: The paper looks at software development from a perspective of workflow dynamics. This is a pioneer effort, as it utilizes simulation and modeling approach in understanding the software supply chains better.