Component Point: A system-level size measure for Component-Based Software Systems

System-level size measures are particularly important in software project management as tasks such as planning and estimating the cost and schedule of software development can be performed more accurately when a size estimate of the entire system is available. However, due to the black-box nature of components, the traditional software measures are not adequate for Component-Based Software Systems (CBSS). In this paper, we describe a Function Point-like measure, named Component Point (CP), for measuring the system-level size of a CBSS specified in the Unified Modelling Language. Our approach integrates three software measures and extends an existing size measure from the more matured Object-Oriented paradigm to the related and relatively young CBSS discipline. We then apply the proposed measure to a Global Positioning System and demonstrate its viability in sizing a CBSS. An empirical analysis is also provided in order to prove the validity and usefulness of the CP measure.