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The Gompertz curve has been used in industry to estimate the number of remaining software faults. This paper aims to introduce a family of distributions for fitting software failure times which subsumes the Gompertz distribution.

The mean value function of the corresponding non-homogenous Poisson process software reliability growth model is presented. Model parameters are estimated by the method of maximum likelihood. A comparison of the new model with eight models that use well-known failure time distributions of exponential, gamma, Rayleigh, Weibull, Gompertz, half normal, log-logistic and lognormal is performed according to the several statistical and informational criteria. Moreover, a Shannon entropy approach is used for ranking and model selection.

Numerical experiments are implemented on five real software failure datasets varying from small to large datasets. The results exhibit that the proposed model is promising and particularly outperforms the Gompertz model in all considered datasets.

The proposed model provides optimized reliability estimation.

Performance measurement, especially at the enterprise level, requires intense consideration of experts and managers in organizations from both theoretical and practical aspects. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the overall organizational performance by developing a performance evaluation model, based on integrating two methodologies of balanced scorecard (BSC) – a multiple perspective plan for performance assessment – and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) – a structured technique for organizing and analyzing complex decisions.

The method was conducted in Isfahan Telecommunications Company (ITC), in 2013. In total, 27 managers of ITC were invited to participate. First, according to overall firm goals, key performance indicators (KPIs) were established with respect to four perspectives of BSC framework. Then pairwise comparisons were done, through standard AHP questionnaires, to determine the preference weights of each indicator and perspective and give precedence to them.

Organizational performance can be measured by the proposed model in a telecommunications industry. According to the adopted method, company KPIs, relative importance of BSC perspectives and performance evaluation of functional areas were identified.

This study provides guidance regarding strategies for improving organizational performance beyond the financial perspective.

Previous studies illustrate various applications of joint BSC and AHP. However, this study applies the integrated framework throughout an organization in a new application field and shows not only company’s features but also telecommunications industry features.