Weather Forecasting

Improvements Needed in Laboratory Software Development Processes Gao ID: AIMD-95-24 December 14, 1994

This report reviews the software development capabilities of the organizations responsible for producing a critical upgrade of the National Weather Service's (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System. By automating functions now performed by forecasters, this system enhancement would streamline the forecast process and improve forecaster productivity. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is developing the system enhancement jointly with NWS. The plan is to define software specifications through a series of prototype systems and then develop production-quality software for use in the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System. This report discusses whether the software development processes of NOAA and NWS are adequate to support (1) software prototyping and (2) production-quality software development.

GAO found that: (1) although FSL and TDL software development processes are adequate to support NWS near-term AFPS development activities, these processes are not sufficient for developing high-quality, production AFPS software for direct integration into AWIPS; (2) FSL and TDL rely more on staff capabilities than on clearly defined and documented processes; (3) FSL and TDL need to introduce discipline into their software development processes before they begin writing production-quality codes to avoid poor AFPS and AWIPS performance, schedule delays, and cost overruns; and (4) FSL and TDL officials have recognized their limitations in terms of developing production-quality software and plan to implement needed improvements.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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