Thursday, 15 August 2013

Competitiveness in production

K   :  Competitiveness     (aka Performance)
Ea  :  Efficacy
Ei  :  Efficiency
Qp  :  Quality of Product
Qs  :  Quality of Service
T   :  Time
C   :  Cost

Ea  =def  Qp * Qs
Ei  =def  1 / (C * T)

K  =def  Ea * Ei  =  (Qp * Qs) / (C * T)

The definition of competitiveness is common to all kinds of engineering, but, due to the very nature of the object matter, with software (in fact, with all knowledge-related production), contrary to what happens with conventional engineering (the "hard" kinds of production), efficacy and efficiency are directly proportional. In other words, contra the usual assumptions, with software, higher quality goes with lower costs.

In symbols:

Ea ∝ 1/Ei for "hardware"
EaEi for "software"