Context. Software re-engineering has been identified as a business critical activity to improve legacy systems in industries. It is the process of understanding existing software and improving it, for modified or improved functionality, better maintainability, configurability, reusability, or other quality goals. However, there is little knowledge to integrate software quality attributes into the re-engineering process. It is essential to resolve quality problems through applying software re-engineering processes. Objectives. In this study we perform an in-depth investigation to identify and resolve quality problems by applying software re-engineering processes. At the end, we created a quality driven re-engineering framework. Methods. At first, we conducted a literature review to get knowledge for building the quality driven re-engineering framework. After that, we performed a case study in Ericsson Company to validate the processes of the framework. At last, we carried out an experiment to prove that the identified quality problems has been resolved. Results. We compared three existing re-engineering frameworks and identified their weaknesses. In order to fix the weaknesses, we created a quality driven re-engineering framework. This framework is used to improve software quality through identifying and resolving root cause problems in legacy systems. Moreover, we validated the framework for one type of legacy system by successfully applying the framework in a real case in Ericsson Company. And also, we proved that the efficiency of a legacy system is improved after executing an experiment in Ericsson Company. Conclusions. We conclude that the quality driven re-engineering framework is applicable, and it can improve efficiency of a legacy system. Moreover, we conclude that there is a need for further empirical validation of the framework in full scale industrial trials.