The Object Management Group (OMG), an international, open membership, not-for-profit technology standards consortium, announced that its Automated Function Points specification has been approved as ISO 19515 by the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Version 1.0 of Automated Function Points was balloted through the Joint Technical Committee on Information Technology (JTC 1) of ISO and given the designation ISO/IEC 19515. AFP is free for the public to download.
Available as an OMG international standard since December 2014, Automated Function Points is the 12th OMG specification to be ratified as an ISO standard.
Automated Function Points measure the size of a software product, according to the counting guidelines of the International Function Point Users Group (IFPUG). According to OMG, its standard is detailed enough to be automatable, making counting consistent and easier.
Along with selected other measures, function points can be used in the following activities:
- Software quality and productivity analysis
- Estimating the costs and resources required for software development, enhancement, and maintenance
- Calibrating estimating methods against the results of past estimates
- Contracting with and managing contracts with system integrators and outsourcers
- Normalizing data used in software comparisons
- Determining the size of a purchased application package (COTS or customized system) by sizing all the functionality included in the package
- Enabling users to determine the ROI of an application by sizing the functionality that specifically matches the requirements of their organization
