A Meta-model for Representing Variability in Product Family Development

Effective product family based development depends on exploiting the commonality and variability in customer requirements. The desirability of variability in products is driven by the (manifest and hidden) needs of the various target market segments identified by various organizational units like sales and marketing. These are informed by other critical components of the context in which product families are developed including the technological capabilities, people/human resources available with the organization, the policies and procedures of the organization, and the strategic objective of the organization. Variability Management is seen as the key aspect that differentiates conventional software engineering and software product line engineering [Kruger 02]. Variability in a product family is defined as a measure of how members of a family may differ from each other [WeissLai 99]. Variability is made explicit using variation points. Variation points are places in design artifacts where a specific decision has been narrowed to several options but the option to be chosen for a particular system has been left open [Atkinson 01]. Identification of the points of variability is crucial in proliferating variety from a single product platform. A central component of product family approach is the management of variability. The product family development process involves managing variations among different members of the family by identifying common and variable aspects in the domain under consideration.