Ideas on How Product-Line Engineering Can be Extended

Abstract

Product-line engineering can result in cost savings and increases in productivity. In addition, in safety-critical systems, the approach has the potential for reuse of analysis and testing results which can lead to a safer system. Nevertheless, there are times when it seems like a product family approach should work when, in fact, there are difficulties in properly defining the boundaries of the product family.

In this paper, we present a position on n-dimensional and hierarchical product families, which we have recently introduced. This paper focuses on our initial thoughts on how making n-dimensional and hierarchical families has the potential to affect the product-line development process as well as how using this approach might enable more organizations to use product-line approaches.