Product line bundles to support product derivation in multi product lines

Abstract

A multi product line comprises several heterogeneous product lines that are part of a large-scale system. Typically, multi product lines (MPLs) cannot be managed centrally as the involved product lines are developed and evolved by multiple teams that often work independently. Support for modularity and the management of dependencies are thus essential in MPLs. We aim at developing a tool-supported approach for modularizing MPLs to facilitate product derivation in MPLs. We elicit requirements for MPL tool support based on a literature survey and by involving experts from our industry partners. Our approach is based on product line bundles which allow to organize and deploy product line models and specific tool support. We also support the distributed configuration of a MPL based on different types of dependencies between product lines. We will evaluate our research in the laboratory and industrial case studies. We will also conduct experiments to assess the usefulness of the developed tool features.