Software Product Lines Collection
This collection includes two decades of SEI work on software product lines.
Abstract
A software product line is a set of software-intensive systems that share a common, managed set of features satisfying the specific needs of a particular market segment or mission and that are developed from a common set of core assets in a prescribed way.
Software product lines are emerging as a viable and important development paradigm allowing companies to realize order-of-magnitude improvements in time to market, cost, productivity, quality, and other business drivers. Software product line engineering can also enable rapid market entry and flexible response, and provide a capability for mass customization.
Benefits
Product lines can help organizations overcome the problems caused by resource shortages. Organizations of all types and sizes have discovered that a product line strategy, when skillfully implemented, can produce many benefits—and ultimately give the organizations a competitive edge. Example organizational benefits include:
- Improved productivity
- Increased quality
- Decreased cost
- Decreased labor needs
- Decreased time to market
- Ability to move into new markets in months, not years
This collection includes two decades of SEI work on software product lines.
Collection Contents
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A Framework for Software Product Line Practice, Version 5.0
December 31, 2012 • White Paper
By Linda M. Northrop, Paul C. Clements, Reed Little, John McGregor, Liam O'Brien, Felix Bachmann, John K. Bergey, Gary Chastek, Sholom G. Cohen, Patrick Donohoe, Lawrence G. Jones, Robert W. Krut, Jr.
This document describes the activities and practices in which an organization must be competent before it can benefit from fielding a product line of software systems.
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The Arcade Game Maker Pedagogical Product Line
January 5, 2009 • White Paper
The Arcade Game Maker product line is an example product line created to support learning about and experimenting with software product lines in the classroom.
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A Case Study in Successful Product Line Development
October 1, 1996 • Technical Report
By Lisa Brownsword, Paul C. Clements
This report describes the experience of a company that builds large, complex, embedded, real-time shipboard command-and-control systems as a product line.
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Adopting Software Product Lines: Getting Leverage from Your Process Improvement
June 13, 2005 • Presentation
By Lawrence G. Jones, Linda M. Northrop
Presented: June 2005
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An Approach to Software Product Line Acquisition Planning
February 12, 2009 • Presentation
By Lawrence G. Jones
Presented at the SEI Army Software Product Line Workshop, February 12, 2009.
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A Product Line Architecture for Army Aviation Diagnostics and Maintenance: Views and Evolution (SATURN 2007)
May 14, 2007 • Presentation
By Ken Capolongo, Sholom G. Cohen
This presentation was given at the 2007 SATURN workshop, held in Pittsburgh.
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A Study of Product Production in Software Product Lines
March 1, 2004 • Technical Note
By Gary Chastek, Patrick Donohoe, John McGregor
This 2004 report presents the results of a study that focused on how product line organizations create products.
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Architecture Reconstruction to Support a Product Line Effort: Case Study
July 1, 2001 • Technical Note
By Liam O'Brien
This report describes the architecture reconstruction process that was followed when the SEI performed architecture reconstructions on three small automotive motor systems.
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A Software Product Line Vision for Defense Acquisition
June 1, 2002 • Technical Note
By Grady Campbell
This report presents a vision for software product lines as an acquisition focus and suggests extensions to current Department of Defense policy and practices to increase the awareness of and receptivity to product line acquisition.
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Basic Concepts of Product Line Practice for the DoD
February 1, 2000 • Technical Note
By John K. Bergey, Matt Fisher, Brian P. Gallagher, Lawrence G. Jones, Linda M. Northrop
This 2000 report provides background information to inform other reports in an SEI-published series of reports designed to provide concise and usable information about product line acquisition practices.
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Bottom-Up Software Product Line Design A Case Study Emphasizing the Need for Stakeholder Commitment (SATURN 2009)
April 23, 2009 • Presentation
By Jens Doppelhamer, Heiko Koziolek, Roland Weiss (ABB Corporate Research)
This 2009 presentation describes a software product line architecture (PLA) intended to increase reuse while ensuring faster time to market for new applications within the robotics domain.
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Business Process Lines to Develop Service-Oriented Architectures through the Software Product Lines paradigm
September 8, 2008 • Presentation
By Nicola Boffoli (University of Bari), Danilo Caivano (University of Bari), Daniela Castelluccia (University of Bari), FabrizioMaria Maggi (University of Bari), Giuseppe Visaggio (University of Bari)
This presentation on business process lines to service-oriented architecture through the software product lines paradigm was delivered by five members of the University of Bari in 2008.
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Case Study: A Measurement Program for Product Lines
May 1, 2004 • Technical Note
By Sholom G. Cohen, David Zubrow, Ed Dunn (Naval Undersea Warfare Center)
This report documents NUWC's approach for measurement by describing the Goal-Driven Software Measurement approach and providing early results of the measurement program.
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Case Study: Building and Communicating a Business Case for a DoD Product Line
April 1, 2001 • Technical Note
By Sholom G. Cohen
This case study describes a DoD weapon system development effort and compares the current way of developing software systems to the product line approach.
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Combined Reuse: Product Line Engineering Meets Service-Oriented Architecture
May 8, 2012 • Presentation
By Georg Leyh (Siemens AG)
A presentation from the Large Scale track at SATURN 2012, May 7-11, 2012, St Petersburg, FL.
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Combining Product Line Engineering and Service Oriented Architecture in Health Care Infrastructure Systems: Experience Report
September 8, 2008 • Presentation
By Jörg Bartholdt (Siemens AG), Bernd Franke (Siemens AG), C. Schwanninger (Siemens AG), Michael Stal (Siemens AG)
This 2008 presentation was delivered by Jörg Bartholdt, Bernd Franke, C. Schwanninger, and Michael Stal of Siemens AG.
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Control Channel Toolkit: A Software Product Line Case Study
October 1, 2001 • Technical Report
By Paul C. Clements, Sholom G. Cohen, Patrick Donohoe, Linda M. Northrop
This 2001 report is a case study of the Control Channel Toolkit (CCT), a software asset base for a software product line of ground-based spacecraft command and control systems built under the direction of the NRO.
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Developing a Product Line Acquisition Strategy for a DoD Organization: A Case Study
April 1, 2001 • Technical Note
By John K. Bergey, Wolfhart B. Goethert
This 2001 report describes the approach a DoD organization used to develop alternative acquisition strategies and analyzes the pros and cons of each.
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Exploring Acquisition Strategies for Adopting a Software Product Line
August 25, 2010 • White Paper
By John K. Bergey, Lawrence G. Jones
Some basics of software product line practice, the challenges that make product line acquisition unique, and three basic acquisition strategies are all part of this white paper.
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Formulation of a Production Strategy for a Software Product Line
August 1, 2009 • Technical Note
By Gary Chastek, Patrick Donohoe, John McGregor
This 2009 report describes a technique for formulating the production strategy of a production system.
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From Projects to Product Lines: A Product Line Economics Case Study
January 1, 2003 • Presentation
By Jukka Heikkilä, Rauli Käppi, Kai Vuolajärvi
This presentation provides an overview of the SCAMPI appraisal method.
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Guidelines for Developing a Product Line Concept of Operations
August 1, 1999 • Technical Report
By Sholom G. Cohen
This 1999 report provides guidelines for an organization that is developing a CONOPS document.
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Guidelines for Developing a Product Line Production Plan
June 1, 2002 • Technical Report
By Gary Chastek, John McGregor
This 2002 technical report provides guidance for creating, using, and evaluating a production plan, which is a description of how core assets are to be used to develop a product in a product line.
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Guidelines for Using OAR Concepts in a DoD Product Line Acquisition Environment
March 1, 2000 • Technical Note
By John K. Bergey, Dennis B. Smith
This 2000 report provides guidance for DoD organizations for mining legacy systems to obtain core assets that will fit into a previously defined software architecture for a product line.
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Introduction to Software Product Lines
November 4, 2014 • Presentation
By Patrick Donohoe
This TSP Symposium 2014 presentation introduces software product line development, essential activities and underlying practices, and costs and benefits of adoption.
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Introduction to Software Product Line Adoption
September 1, 2005 • Presentation
By Linda M. Northrop, Lawrence G. Jones
In this 2005 presentation, Linda M. Northrop of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) provides an introduction to software product line acquisition.
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Investment Analysis of Software Assets for Product Lines
November 1, 1996 • Technical Report
By James Withey
This 1996 report introduces an approach that will help managers make resource allocation decisions.
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Managing Variation in Services in a Software Product Line Context
May 1, 2010 • Technical Note
By Sholom G. Cohen, Robert W. Krut, Jr.
This report highlights the mutual benefits of combining systematic reuse approaches from product line development with flexible approaches for implementing business processes in a service oriented architecture.
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MAP and OAR Methods: Techniques for Developing Core Assets for Software Product Lines from Existing Assets
April 1, 2002 • Technical Note
By Liam O'Brien, Dennis B. Smith
This 2002 report describes the MAP and OAR methods, the activities that each involves, and examples of applying them.
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Measures for Software Product Lines
October 1, 2003 • Technical Note
By David Zubrow, Gary Chastek
This 2003 report characterizes the status of measurement associated with the operation of a software product line, suggests a small set of measures to support its management, and provides guidance for those establishing measurement activities within a software product line.
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Mining Existing Assets for Software Product Lines
May 1, 2000 • Technical Note
By John K. Bergey, Dennis B. Smith
This 2000 report outlines four basic steps that are required to successfully mine assets.
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On-Demand Generation of Views to Support Online Evolution of Software Product Lines
May 16, 2011 • Presentation
By Nelis Boucke, Alexander Helleboogh, Bartosz Michalik, Danny Weyns
This presentation from SATURN 2011 codifies the the architecture knowledge required for evoloving products in a given viewpoint.
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Overview of a Proactive Software Product Line Acquisition Approach
February 12, 2009 • Presentation
By John K. Bergey
Presented at the SEI Army Software Product Line Workshop, February 12, 2009
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Preparing for Automated Derivation of Products in a Software Product Line
September 1, 2005 • Technical Report
By John McGregor
This 2005 report provides an end-to-end view of the activities that are needed to support the automatic derivation of products within a software product line.
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Product Line Acquisition in the DoD: The Promise, The Challenges
December 1, 1999 • Technical Note
By Lawrence G. Jones
This 1999 paper presents the basics of product line practices and reports the results of two DoD product line workshops in which important issues and successful practices were shared.
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Product Line Acquisition in a DoD Organizational Guidance for Decision Makers
March 1, 2006 • Technical Note
By John K. Bergey, Sholom G. Cohen
This 2006 report chronicles the decisions a program manager might face in considering the adoption of a product line approach.
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SEI Product Line Bibliography
December 31, 2012 • White Paper
This bibliography lists SEI and non-SEI resources that have informed the SEI Product Lines efforts. Examples cover diverse domains and show the kind of improvements you can achieve using a product line approach.
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SEI Software Product Line Diagnostics
March 18, 2010 • Brochure
Three diagnostic tools for understanding an organization's readiness for and initial approach to software product lines
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Software Product Line Adoption Roadmap
September 1, 2004 • Technical Report
By Linda M. Northrop
This 2004 report introduces a variant of the Factory Pattern called the Adoption Factory pattern that provides a generic roadmap to guide a manageable, phased product line adoption strategy.
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Software Product Line Essentials
July 1, 2008 • Presentation
By Linda M. Northrop
This presentation introduces the concept of strategic, planned reuse and a new way of conducting one's software business.
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Software Product Lines in Acquisition
January 28, 2003 • Presentation
By Grady Campbell
This 2003 presentation on Software Product Lines in Acquisition was delivered by Grady Campbell of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in January 2003.
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Software Product Lines: Past, Present, and Future
May 2, 2005 • Presentation
By Paul C. Clements
Presented: May 2005
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Software Product Lines: Practices and Patterns
August 20, 2001 • Book
By Paul C. Clements, Linda M. Northrop
This book provides a framework of specific practices, with detailed case studies, to guide the implementation of product lines in your organization.
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Software Product Lines: Reuse That Makes Business Sense
April 3, 2006 • Presentation
By Linda M. Northrop
This presentation on Software Product Lines: Reuse That Makes Business Sense was delivered by Linda M. Northrop of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) in April 2006.
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Testing a Software Product Line
December 1, 2001 • Technical Report
By John McGregor
This report expands on the testing practice area described by Clements and Northrop. Test-related activities that can be used to form the test process for a product line organization are described.
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The DoD Acquisition Environment and Software Product Lines
May 1, 1999 • Technical Note
By John K. Bergey, Matt Fisher, Lawrence G. Jones
This technical note examines three key DoD acquisition policies and regulations, along with their implications for launching a product line.
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The U.S. Army's Common Avionics Architecture System (CAAS) Product Line: A Case Study
September 1, 2005 • Technical Report
By Paul C. Clements, John K. Bergey
This report offers a case study of organizations that have adopted a software product line approach for developing a family of software-intensive systems.
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Variability in Software Product Lines
September 1, 2005 • Technical Report
By Felix Bachmann, Paul C. Clements
This 2005 report describes the concepts needed when creating core assets with included variability. These concepts provide guidelines to core asset creators on how to model the variability explicitly, so it is handled consistently throughout the product line and managing the variability becomes feasible.
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