Managing requirements in a product family approach to systems engineering

Abstract

Increasingly, organizations are considering a “product family” approach to systems engineering (SE). A product family enables large-scale reuse across similar systems, so reducing development costs and delivery time scales. Organizations must manage the requirements for a family of related systems in addition to individual systems. Unfortunately, a literature review reveals an absence of guidance in this area. Drawing on experiences from three case studies, this paper offers practical advice on managing requirements for product families, including requirements planning, determination, review, and evolution. The paper refrains from prescribing specific techniques, notations, or tools, as these are not generally transferable across organizations. Instead, attention is centered on the capability areas and key practices that are necessary to underpin requirements management in a product-family SE approach. It is proposed that, with appropriate tailoring, the key practices can help project managers define a requirements process suited to their own product family. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Syst Eng 2: 46–55, 1999