Model-Based Design of Product Line Components in the Automotive Domain

For installing product line engineering in practice, strategies are needed that are composed of smaller steps where, on the one hand, each of them represents a well-defined move towards the ultimate goal of a well-functioning product line organization but, on the other hand, does not bear unmanageable risks. Hence product line approaches like Fraunhofer PuLSETM must define such steps, as well as provide a framework that supports their systematic combination into a tailored organizational strategy for installing product line engineering. This paper presents one step of such a strategy that focuses on the design activity. A well-known model-based design approach from the automotive domain is extended by the concept of variability and decision modeling. The resulting method has been prototyped and validated in a controlled environment. The measured results show that the method can be easily applied and leads to an effort distribution analogously to the typical product line curve.