Evaluation of Frame- and Feature-based Software Product Line Tools from the Viewpoint of Mass Customization by End Users

Customers expect Information and Communications Technology (ICT) platforms and applications to deliver services customized to their needs. Software product line (SPL) paradigm uses platforms and variability management to develop mass-customizable software applications. The paradigm necessitates effective software tools to manage platform and application artifacts and traceability and variability information. This paper constructs a comprehensive but lightweight tool evaluation framework and uses it to evaluate two tools, XML-based variant configuration language (XVCL) and FeaturePlugin – a feature modeling plug-in for Eclipse Integrated Development Environment. The paper analyzes the capabilities of the tools for enabling the mass customization of software applications by the end users performing complex workflows. Both the XVCL and FeaturePlugin tool envisage more efficient software system development by means of reusability, support for abstraction, and configuration mechanisms. Future research is needed to refine and validate the evaluation framework in the context of other types of SPL tools

PRODUCT LIFECYCLE DATA SHARING AND VISUALISATION: WEB-BASED APPROACHES

Both product design and manufacturing are intrinsically collaborative processes. From conception and design to project completion and ongoing maintenance, all points in the lifecycle of any product involve the work of fluctuating teams of designers, suppliers and customers. That is why companies are involved in the creation of a distributed design and a manufacturing environment which could provide an effective way to communicate and share information throughout the entire enterprise and the supply chain. At present, the technologies that support such a strategy are based on World Wide Web platforms and follow two different paths. The first one focuses on 2D documentation improvement and introduces 3D interactive information in order to add knowledge to drawings. The second one works directly on 3D models and tries to extend the life of 3D data moving these design information downstream through the entire product lifecycle. Unfortunately the actual lack of a unique 3D Web-based standard has stimulated the growing up of many different proprietary and open source standards and, as a consequence, a production of an incompatible information exchange over the WEB. This paper proposes a structured analysis of Web-based solutions, trying to identify the most critical aspects to promote a unique 3D digital standard model capable of sharing product and manufacturing data more effectively—regardless of geographic boundaries, data structures, processes or computing environmen

Mass Production Processes

It is always hard to set manufacturing systems to produce large quantities of standardized parts. Controlling these mass production lines needs deep knowledge, hard experience, and the required related tools as well. The use of modern methods and techniques to produce a large quantity of products within productive manufacturing processes provides improvements in manufacturing costs and product quality. In order to serve these purposes, this book aims to reflect on the advanced manufacturing systems of different alloys in production with related components and automation technologies. Additionally, it focuses on mass production processes designed according to Industry 4.0 considering different kinds of quality and improvement works in mass production systems for high productive and sustainable manufacturing. This book may be interesting to researchers, industrial employees, or any other partners who work for better quality manufacturing at any stage of the mass production processes

A configuration-based domain-specific rule generation framework for process model customization

In today’s changing world, there is an ever-increasing demand and need for software reuse in applications, where the process model needs to be reused in different applications in a domain-specific environment. The process model is required to adapt and implement changes promptly at run-time, in response of the end-user configuration requirements. Furthermore, reusability is emerging strongly as a necessary underlying capability, particularly for customization of business in a dynamic environment where end-users can select their requirements to achieve a specific goal. Such adaptations are in general, performed by non-technical end-users which can lead to losing a significant number of person-days and which can also open up possibilities to introduce errors into the system. These scenarios call for - indeed cry out for - a system with a configurable and customizable business process, operable by users with limited technical expertise. Research aims to provide a framework for generating the rule language and configuring domain constraints. This framework builds upon the core idea of Software Product Lines Engineering (SPLE) and Model-Driven Architecture (MDA). The SPLE provides a platform that includes the variability model. Variability models offer features where end-users can select features and customize possible changes in the domain template, which is the container for domain and process models. The user selects their requirements as a feature from feature models and generates rules from domain models using MDA. Then, the generated rules are translated from a high-level domain model, based on the requirements of the end-user. On the other hand, the weaving model is responsible for reflecting activation and de-activation of features of variabilities in the domain template. The usability of the proposed framework is evaluated with a user study in the area of Digital Content Technology. The results demonstrate that usability improvements can be achieved by using the proposed techniques. The framework can be used to support semi-automatic configuration that is efficient, effective and satisfactory

Feature-based configuration management of reconfigurable cloud applications

A recent trend in software industry is to provide enterprise applications in the cloud that are accessible everywhere and on any device. As the market is highly competitive, customer orientation plays an important role. Companies therefore start providing applications as a service, which are directly configurable by customers in an online self-service portal. However, customer configurations are usually deployed in separated application instances. Thus, each instance is provisioned manually and must be maintained separately. Due to the induced redundancy in software and hardware components, resources are not optimally utilized. A multi-tenant aware application architecture eliminates redundancy, as a single application instance serves multiple customers renting the application. The combination of a configuration self-service portal with a multi-tenant aware application architecture allows serving customers just-in-time by automating the deployment process. Furthermore, self-service portals improve application scalability in terms of functionality, as customers can adapt application configurations on themselves according to their changing demands. However, the configurability of current multi-tenant aware applications is rather limited. Solutions implementing variability are mainly developed for a single business case and cannot be directly transferred to other application scenarios. The goal of this thesis is to provide a generic framework for handling application variability, automating configuration and reconfiguration processes essential for self-service portals, while exploiting the advantages of multi-tenancy. A promising solution to achieve this goal is the application of software product line methods. In software product line research, feature models are in wide use to express variability of software intense systems on an abstract level, as features are a common notion in software engineering and prominent in matching customer requirements against product functionality. This thesis introduces a framework for feature-based configuration management of reconfigurable cloud applications. The contribution is three-fold. First, a development strategy for flexible multi-tenant aware applications is proposed, capable of integrating customer configurations at application runtime. Second, a generic method for defining concern-specific configuration perspectives is contributed. Perspectives can be tailored for certain application scopes and facilitate the handling of numerous configuration options. Third, a novel method is proposed to model and automate structured configuration processes that adapt to varying stakeholders and reduce configuration redundancies. Therefore, configuration processes are modeled as workflows and adapted by applying rewrite rules triggered by stakeholder events. The applicability of the proposed concepts is evaluated in different case studies in the industrial and academic context. Summarizing, the introduced framework for feature-based configuration management is a foundation for automating configuration and reconfiguration processes of multi-tenant aware cloud applications, while enabling application scalability in terms of functionality

Factors shaping the evolution of electronic documentation systems

The main goal is to prepare the space station technical and managerial structure for likely changes in the creation, capture, transfer, and utilization of knowledge. By anticipating advances, the design of Space Station Project (SSP) information systems can be tailored to facilitate a progression of increasingly sophisticated strategies as the space station evolves. Future generations of advanced information systems will use increases in power to deliver environmentally meaningful, contextually targeted, interconnected data (knowledge). The concept of a Knowledge Base Management System is emerging when the problem is focused on how information systems can perform such a conversion of raw data. Such a system would include traditional management functions for large space databases. Added artificial intelligence features might encompass co-existing knowledge representation schemes; effective control structures for deductive, plausible, and inductive reasoning; means for knowledge acquisition, refinement, and validation; explanation facilities; and dynamic human intervention. The major areas covered include: alternative knowledge representation approaches; advanced user interface capabilities; computer-supported cooperative work; the evolution of information system hardware; standardization, compatibility, and connectivity; and organizational impacts of information intensive environments

An analytical surver on customization at modular systems in the context of industrial design

Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Industrial Design, Izmir, 2006Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 96-99)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxi, 99 leavesEnterprises in all branches of industry are being required to become more user focused, yet, at the same time, increasing competitive pressure dictates that costs must also continue to decrease. Mass customization and modularity are strategies developed to address this challenge by producing goods and services meeting individual customer's needs with near mass production efficiency. However, while mass customization and modular systems have already been discussed in the literature, reports on practical implementation of the principles of mass customization in businesses can be found only within the last years. It is a challenge of manufacturing to produce variety of products with limited resources. As corporations strive to rationalize their manufacturing facilities and to produce a large variety of products at lower cost, modularity is becoming a focus of attention. Modular products and reconfigurable processes are crucial to agile manufacturing and provide a way to produce a variety of products that satisfy various customer requirements in time. This modular approach promises the benefits of high volume production (that arises from producing standard modules) and at the same time, the ability to produce a wide variety of products that are customized for individual customers. Such modular product design has been stated as being a goal of good design. Mass Customization target is the transformation of knowledge into "new" products or services, thus customizing and adapting first knowledge then the product itself. Customizing knowledge happens through instantiation and adaptation of design prototypes of the products or the component to fit the individual needs of the customer. This thesis. emphasis is placed on mass customization and modularity which can be seen as key strategies for making firms more customer centric. Furthermore, provide an introduction into principles, concepts, and demarcations, for mass customization and modularity. As the case study Aye Birsel.s resolve model for Herman Miller is a very good example for the relationship between mass customization and modularity