Lessons Learned Applying Commercial Off-the-Shelf Products

While the lure of easy system construction from pre-existing building blocks that snap into place is appealing, current reality reveals a less than ideal picture, particularly for commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software components. Examining the similarities and differences of organizations that have applied COTS and the successes and failures of those organizations has enabled the COTS-Based Systems (CBS) Initiative at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) to identify a number of significant capabilities that an organization must have to succeed with a COTS-based approach. This case study of the Manufacturing Resource Planning II program is part of a series of case studies that seek to identify important acquisition, business, and engineering issues surrounding the use of COTS-based systems and thus derive available solutions, where possible.