Several new software techniques are available that can be used to enhance the productivity and flexibility of speech signal processing especially in research and exploratory programming of new algorithms. This paper describes an object-oriented signal processing environment QuickSig and how it is applied in various speech processing tasks. The notion of signals as objects and operations as generic functions is presented. Other features to be described are event-based analysis of signals, representation of symbolic structures, graphic programming and block diagram description of algorithms as well as code generation for DSP processors from high-level specifications. Examples are given to characterize the use of the system in speech synthesis, analysis and recognition.