Introducing product lines in small embedded systems

Abstract

How do you introduce product lines into a hardware dominated organization that has increasing software architecture awareness and products with extremely limited memory resources? This experience paper describes the transition steps from a conventional development to a first product, conformant to a product line design. Further steps towards a full product line are outlined in this on-going project. Key aspects like investigation of requirements, design, set of tools, speed of change, skills, and organization commitment are addressed. The investigation phase involved an architecture reconstruction of existing products and a requirements elicitation. The architectural design phase used the Attribute Driven Design method (ADD) of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). The generated architecture had to be mapped onto the business unit’s design tool, which generated the component code. Instead of reaching a full product line approach with the first product this experience report emphasizes the right speed of change by firstly reaching a high commitment level at the organization in software architecture techniques. This builds the necessary foundation to survive higher investments for the first few products until the cost benefit of product lines pay back later on. Essential in the introduction phase are personal skills, like integrity in order to support a successful change at the organization. Those skills form a foundation to achieve a committed organization.