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The Reuse Technology Support Center was established in 1991 to coordinate and manage the reuse activities within IBM Corp. One component of the established reuse organization was a Reusable Parts Technology Center in Boblingen, Germany, with the mission to develop reusable software parts and to advance the state-of-the-art in software reuse. Before the existence of a reusable parts center, reuse of code across project borders seldom took place. No organizational structures supported cross-project communication. In addition, the lack of a common design language made communication difficult. Many different description methods for code were in existence. An attempt was made to introduce a common design language within IBM, but it met with little success. During the creation and establishment of the parts center, it was discovered what language features and what infrastructure were needed to enable the building and distribution of reusable components. Many of the problems to be solved were caused by the inadequate support of reuse through the language that was initially used.