Automated error analysis for the agilization of feature modeling

The success of product line engineering techniques in the last 15 years has popularized the use of software variability as a key modeling approach for describing the commonality and variability of systems at all stages of the software lifecycle. Software product lines enable a family of products to share a common core platform, while allowing for product specific functionality being built on top of the platform. Many companies have exploited the concept of software product lines to increase the resources that focus on highly differentiating functionality and thus improve their competitiveness with higher quality and reusable products and decreasing the time-to-market condition. Many books on product line engineering either introduce specific product line techniques or include brief summaries of industrial cases. From these sources, it is difficult to gain a comprehensive understanding of the various dimensions and aspects of software variability. Here the editors address this gap by providing a comprehensive reference on the notion of variability modeling in the context of software product line engineering, presenting an overview of the techniques proposed for variability modeling and giving a detailed perspective on software variability management. Their book is organized in four main parts, which guide the reader through the various aspects and dimensions of software variability. Part 1 which is mostly written by the editors themselves introduces the major topics related to software variability modeling, thus providing a multi-faceted view of both technological and management issues. Next, part 2 of the book comprises four separate chapters dedicated to research and commercial tools. Part 3 then continues with the most practical viewpoint of the book presenting three different industry cases on how variability is managed in real industry projects. Finally, part 4 concludes the book and encompasses six different chapters on emerging research topics in software variability like e.g. service-oriented or dynamic software product lines, or variability and aspect orientation. Each chapter briefly summarizes What you will learn in this chapter, so both expert and novice readers can easily locate the topics dealt with. Overall, the book captures the current state of the art and best practices, and indicates important open research challenges as well as possible pitfalls. Thus it serves as a reference for researchers and practitioners in software variability management, allowing them to develop the next set of solutions, techniques and methods in this complicated and yet fascinating field of software engineering.

Systems and Software Variability Management: Concepts, Tools and Experiences

http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2008/isbn9789512294855/article3.pdf

Kumbang: A domain ontology for modelling variability in software product families

This paper presents a study of how the use of product configurators affects business processes of engineering-oriented companies. A literature study shows that only a minor part of product configuration research deals with the effects of product configuration, and that the ones that do are mostly vague when reporting the effects of configurator projects. Only six cases were identified, which provide estimates of the actual size of lead time reduction achieved from product configurators. To broaden this knowledge, this paper presents the results of a study of 14 companies concerning the impact of product configurators on business processes related to the creation of quotes and detailed product specifications. The study documents impressive results of the application of configurator technology. For example, in the data retrieved the use of configurators was estimated to have implied up to a 99.9% reduction of the quotation lead time with an average estimated reduction of 85.5%.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0890060410000636

The impact of product configurators on lead times in engineering-oriented companies

For two decades, feature diagrams have been intensively studied as a means to specify variability and pilot configuration in software product line engineering. Surprisingly though, it seems that very few reports on the use of feature diagrams in practice are available. To test this claim, we started a systematic review of such reports. In the collected material, we tried to identify positive and negative feedback on the use of feature diagrams. In this paper, we present the first results of this work in progress and discuss the opportunity of extending it to a fully systematic review on a wider scale.

/pdf/a-preliminary-review-on-the-application-of-feature-diagrams-1q3hp1w9bm.pdf

A Preliminary Review on the Application of Feature Diagrams in Practice

Configurable software product families are a subclass of software product families that are customized in a product individual derivation process without design or programming. This article presents results on analyzing two such families and their derivation processes found in a descriptive case study on software product families. Some characteristics particular to such product families and their derivation seem to emerge: There is a configurable product base that is configured to the customer requirements. The variability has two distinct levels, of which the first is visible to the customer at sales. The derivation process consists of requirements specification, configuring, delivery, installing, and tailoring activities. Derivation is very flexible and efficient. Most derivations can be carried out without programming. The activities primarily require application domain understanding, system administrator skills, and understanding of the family. The product developers can be separated organizationally from product derivators. We further proposed some hypotheses on the success factors for configurable software product families: A large enough number of derivations, understanding and stability of the application domain, and clear software product family–oriented culture and processes. However, very advanced or software product family–oriented software engineering methods or similar methods do not seem a prerequisite for success. We also suggest further research on configurable software product families. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Characterizing configurable software product families and their derivation

A configurable software product family allows the deployment of individual products without customer-specific design or programming effort. Despite the fact that such software product families have recently gained research interest, there are only few empirical studies on them. This paper presents some results of a descriptive case study undertaken in two companies that develop and deploy configurable software product families. The similarities found in comparisons between characteristics of the configurable software product families were remarkable, although the companies, products, and application domains were different. The study shows that the configurable software product family approach is already applied in the industry. Furthermore, the approach seems to be a feasible and even efficient way to systematically develop a family of products and manage the variability within it.

Antti Mattila

Papers

Characterizing configurable software product families and their derivation

A case study of two configurable software product families

Characterizing Configurable Software Product Families and their