Managed Evolution of Automotive Software Product Line Architectures: A Systematic Literature Study

The rapidly growing number of software-based features in the automotive domain as well as the special requirements in this domain ask for dedicated engineering approaches, models, and processes. Nowadays, software development in the automotive sector is generally developed as product line development, in which major parts of the software are kept adaptable in order to enable reusability of the software in different vehicle variants. In addition, reuse also plays an important role in the development of new vehicle generations in order to reduce development costs. Today, a high number of methods and techniques exist to support the product line driven development of software in the automotive sector. However, these approaches generally consider only partial aspects of development. In this paper, we present an in-depth literature study based on a conceptual model of artifacts and activities for the managed evolution of automotive software product line architectures. We are interested in the coverage of the particular aspects of the conceptual model and, thus, the fields covered in current research and research gaps, respectively. Furthermore, we aim to identify the methods and techniques used to implement automotive software product lines in general, and their usage scope in particular. As a result, this in-depth review reveals that none of the studies represent a holistic approach for the managed evolution of automotive software product lines. In addition, approaches from agile software development are of growing interest in this field

Software Architecture in Practice: Challenges and Opportunities

Software architecture has been an active research field for nearly four decades, in which previous studies make significant progress such as creating methods and techniques and building tools to support software architecture practice. Despite past efforts, we have little understanding of how practitioners perform software architecture related activities, and what challenges they face. Through interviews with 32 practitioners from 21 organizations across three continents, we identified challenges that practitioners face in software architecture practice during software development and maintenance. We reported on common software architecture activities at software requirements, design, construction and testing, and maintenance stages, as well as corresponding challenges. Our study uncovers that most of these challenges center around management, documentation, tooling and process, and collects recommendations to address these challenges.Comment: Preprint of Full Research Paper, the 31st ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE '23

Towards an aspect weaving BPEL engine

This position paper proposes the use of dynamic aspects and the visitor design pattern to obtain a highly configurable and extensible BPEL engine. Using these two techniques, the core of this infrastructural software can be customised to meet new requirements and add features such as debugging, execution monitoring, or changing to another Web Service selection policy. Additionally, it can easily be extended to cope with customer-specific BPEL extensions. We propose the use of dynamic aspects not only on the engine itself but also on the workflow in order to tackle the problems of Web Service hot deployment and hot fixes to long running processes. In this way, composing aWeb Service "on-the-fly" means weaving its choreography interface into the workflow

Product strategy in response to technological innovation in the semiconductor test industry

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2004.Includes bibliographical references (p. 82-84).After the market boom of 2000 in the semiconductor industry changed significantly. The changes included stricter limits on capital cost spending, and the increased propensity of the industry to outsource the manufacturing of semiconductors. Thus, the semiconductor industry demanded greater cost of test economics in semiconductor test equipment. In response to the changes in the industry and the customer demands, the semiconductor test industry segmented itself into two broad strategies. Typically, the large semiconductor test equipment manufacturers employed a broad platform strategy, while the smaller semiconductor test equipment manufacturers employed a niche platform strategy. This thesis confirms the underlying changes in the semiconductor test industry by looking at the entire semiconductor value chain. It also looks at the root causes of the changes in order to determine the future effects of the changes in the semiconductor test industry. This thesis also analyzes the two distinct market strategies, developing a systematic method to compare and evaluate each strategy. In addition, it explores the intangible risks associated with the adoption of each strategy. After understanding the trends in the semiconductor test industry, this thesis also presents a unified model to discuss the future direction of the semiconductor test industry. Looking at this direction, this project develops specific recommendations for businesses to compete effectively given the impending market conditions.by Robert W. Lin.S.M

Technology adoption and the organization of production. The case of digital production technologies

open1noopenguendalina anzolinAnzolin, GUENDALINA MARI

Beyond the Big Leave: The Future of U.S. Automotive Human Resources

Based on industry interviews and trends analyses, forecasts employment levels and hiring nationwide and in Michigan through 2016, and compiles automakers' input on technical needs, hiring criteria, and suggestions for training and education curricula

Strategy-focused architecture investment decisions

The thesis considers how a systematic approach for evaluating architecture investments can lead to decisions that are driven by business preferences rather than by personal incentives. A decision to invest in software-architecture requires systematic evaluation of the trade-off between strategic long-term benefits of architecture on the business and short term investment. It typically is a decision that is difficult to explain and quantify. In this sense, it is not surprising that such a decision is often driven by personal incentives or strong leadership of deciders, architects and managers, leading to suboptimal decision-making process in the organization. This PhD thesis proposes a way in which to support the decision to invest in architecture by linking the architecture improvements to the business strategy and taking into consideration the human aspects. We follow the iterative study design process including several real-life case studies, multiple interviews, and an experiment. In the first case study, we investigate how practitioners make a decision on architecture investment with a focus on how the decision process can be improved in industrial practice. To support the decision process in an objective way, we propose to use arguments based on real options theory. The evaluation by practitioners disclosed that including such economics of architecture is necessary but not sufficient for decision making. To better understand the information needs for decision making we conducted field interviews on the kinds of information that architects and managers need. In a subsequent experiment we tested whether which kind of information is actually used in decision making. As expected, the professionals tend to use just a few information types for decision making. However, our results suggest that additional quantified information was used by participants with longer development experience and under time pressure. Based upon the experimental findings we propose a concept to quantify the customer value of architecture. Despite the positive evaluation, the practitioners asked for further improvements to translate the architecture changes directly to the economic value. Ultimately, based on the findings from the preceding studies we propose a comprehensive approach to support objective architecture decision making; we label it Strategy-focused Architecture (StArch). Adopting strategic management tools, strategy map and balanced scorecards, we provide step-by-step guidance to assess the economic benefits of architecture improvements aligned with the strategic business objectives