Critical factors for a successful Platform-Based product family approach

Abstract

The notion of software product families is becoming more and more popular, both in research and in industry. In presentations of ideal applications, the benefits of product families are stressed and very little attention is paid to possible problems. However, in practice, it is important to know what such problems could be and how they could be dealt with. In this paper we want to identify some of the most critical issues, and explain how they can be handled or even avoided. This will be done on the basis of experiences gained with three industrial product families for professional markets. The focus will be on product families that use platforms with reusable assets for the development of the family members.