Handling Process Variants in Information Systems with Software Product Line Engineering

Different organisations often run similar business processes at the operational level. Existing approaches define reference or base processes that may be customized to organisation-specific needs to use synergies and reduce costs. However, existing approaches strongly focus on the model perspective rather than on the implementation level of the Process-Aware Information System (PAIS). Software Product Line (SPL) Engineering deals with the implementation and maintenance of similar software products. An SPL comprises common core artefacts based on which a set of similar software products can be derived. This paper demonstrates how to build a PAIS Product Line by applying the concepts of SPL Engineering. The specified and immutable control flow of the PAIS Product Line eliminates dependencies among features, which reduces the challenges of SPL Engineering. A proof-of-concept illustrates the approach.