An Agile Process Model for Product Derivation in Software Product Line Engineering

Software Product Lines (SPL) and Agile practices have emerged as new paradigms for developing software. Both approaches share common goals; such as improving productivity, reducing time to market, decreasing development costs and increasing customer satisfaction. These common goals provide the motivation for this research. We believe that integrating Agile practices into SPL can bring a balance between agility and formalism. However, there has been little research on such integration. We have been researching the potential of integrating Agile approaches in one of the key SPL process areas, product derivation. In this paper we present an outline of our Agile process model for product derivation that was developed through industry based case study research

Flexible Product Line Derivation applied to a Model Based Systems Engineering process

soumis a CSDM 2012Systems engineering enables the successful realization of systems, focusing on defining customer needs early in the development cycle. However there is a lack of methodological support when the development of systems needs to rely on legacy system designs. Furthermore, in the automotive domain, product diversity increases system complexity so much, that reuse becomes much more difficult and time con- suming than usually. We believe a specific strategy must be adopted to prepare for reuse and to achieve systems engineering by reuse. While product line derivation provides the means to obtain single products form a collection of assets, there is still little support for integration with systems engineering practices. In this paper we present an approach which takes into account systems engineering methodolog- ical aspects in product line engineering by rendering the derivation process more flexible. We present the implementation of the tool support for our approach based on the Papyrus1 SysML modeller and exemplify the concepts through a derivation example of the electric parking brake system

Some Challenges of Feature-based Merging of Class Diagrams

In software product line engineering, feature mod-els enable to automate the generation of product-specific models in conjunction with domain “base models ” (e.g. UML models). Two approaches ex-ist: pruning of a large domain model, or merging of model fragments. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the merging approach on base mod-els, and how they are made and used. We adopt an empirical method and test the approach on an ex-ample. The results show several challenges in the way model fragments are written, the need for new modelling language constructs and tool support. 1

Enabling Flexibility through Forming and Evolving Systems of Systems

Flexibility is a highly desired attribute of many systems operating in changing or uncertain conditions. This paper presents a study of enabling flexibility through designing and operating systems of systems (SoSs). The paper analyzes flexibility mechanisms of SoSs and, accordingly, identifies needs for flexibility that SoSs can meet. Following that, it proposes a hierarchical network as a more flexible SoS architecture for complex or distributed large-scale systems. Then, decision problems for forming and evolving a SoS network are defined. A case that involves integrating distributed renewable energy sources with the main grid is presented to illustrate the implementation of the proposed methodology. Results from this study support the idea of acquiring and maintaining flexibility with SoSs. The paper also identifies research needs for advancing this particular use of SoSs

Early Integration Testing for Entity Reconciliation in the Context of Heterogeneous Data Sources

Entity reconciliation (ER) aims to combine data from different sources for a unified vision. The management of large volumes of data has given rise to significant challenges to the ER problem due to facts such as data becoming more unstructured, unclean, and incomplete or the existence of many datasets that store information about the same topic. Testing the applications that implement the ER problem is crucial to ensure both the correctness of the reconciliation process and the quality of the reconciled data. This paper presents an approach based on model-driven engineering that allows the creation of test models for the early integration testing of ER applications, contributing in three main aspects: the description of the elements of the proposed framework, the definition of the testing model, and the validation of the proposal through two real-world case studies. This validation verifies that the early integration testing of the ER application is capable of detecting a series of deficiencies, which a priori are not known and that will help to improve the final result that the ER application offers.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2013-46928-C3-1-RMinisterio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2016-76956-C3-1-RMinisterio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIN2015-71938-RED

Extending product lifecycle management for manufacturing knowledge sharing

Product lifecycle management provides a framework for information sharing that promotes various types of decisionmaking procedures. For product lifecycle management to advance towards knowledge-driven decision support, then this demands more than simply exchanging information. There is, therefore, a need to formally capture best practice through-life engineering knowledge that can be fed back across the product lifecycle. This article investigates the interoperable manufacturing knowledge systems concept. Interoperable manufacturing knowledge systems use an expressive ontological approach that drives the improved configuration of product lifecycle management systems for manufacturing knowledge sharing. An ontology of relevant core product lifecycle concepts is identified from which viewpoint-specific domains, such as design and manufacture, can be formalised. Essential ontology-based mechanisms are accommodated to support the verification and sharing of manufacturing knowledge across domains. The work has been experimentally assessed using an aerospace compressor disc design and manufacture example. While it has been demonstrated that the approach supports the representation of disparate design and manufacture perspectives as well as manufacturing knowledge feedback in a timely manner, areas for improvement have also been identified for future work