Initiating and Institutionalizing Software Product Line Engineering: From Bottom-Up Approach to Top-Down Practice

A software-intensive company generally grows from one of its remarkable software products. Different approaches adopted by a company will contribute to its future evolution. The approach employed by FISCAN, a leading manufacturer of security inspection system in China, is software product line engineering (SPLE). This paper reviews the initiation and institutionalization of SPLE by FISCAN. This is a process started with a bottom-up approach from application engineering to domain engineering, and realized by a top-down practice from domain engineering back to application engineering. Eventually, a closed loop which connects domain engineering and application engineering is ready to accelerate core asset development and product development continuously. This paper offers a roadmap for the initiation and institutionalization of SPLE as it was developed at FISCAN, including establishing a core team of product line champions, formalizing matrix product line model (MPLM), developing core asset library and product lines and creating compatible process model.