A Flexible CASE Framework – Synergies of CASE Tool Composition

We present a concept and a sketch for the realization of a flexible framework for computer-aided software engineering (CASE), motivated by the demand for high-quality software products created by a measurable and repeatable process. From the definition of software engineering and project engineering, need arises to support the technical process and the economical process of software development by suitable tools. We show that such a CASE support has to be seen multi-dimensional and that single, monolithic CASE systems attempting to cover the whole process are too inflexible to be of valuable help, at least for education and small/medium-sized enterprises. Instead, we pre-sent a flexible CASE framework, the functionality of which is gained (and can be adapted) by filling the framework’s hot spots with suitable tools. This strategy has proven successful in several pro-jects run at our university.