Production Planning in a Software Product Line Organization

Abstract

Most software product line organizations recognize the need for two roles: core asset developers and product builders. These roles may both be assumed by an individual or each may be assumed by persons who are in different administrative units, in different geographic locations, or of vastly different skill levels. For example, a corporation may have one lab assigned to produce core assets and other labs around the world to use those assets to produce products. The greater the separation among these people the greater the need for communication and coordination regarding product production.

Production planning is used in many industries to coordinate the efforts of external suppliers who supply parts and to structure the assembly line where products are produced. The need for coordination in a software product line organization is even greater than in hard goods manufacturing because product production is less constrained by physical properties or industrial standards. Our research has shown that organizations that fail to plan production are more likely to fail than those that do plan. The goal of this tutorial is to provide participants with techniques for conducting production planning.

We will cover the complete product line life cycle from adoption until a first generation of products is developed. We use a business strategy development tool, Porter’s Five Forces model, to guide strategy development. We will use the Software Process Engineering Meta-model and an instantiation of it, the Eclipse Process Framework for method development and documentation. For the production plan we will use a document template that has been used with numerous clients.

Presenter: Dr. Gary J. Chastek

Dr. Gary J. Chastek is a senior member of the technical staff at the Software Engineering Institute in the Software Product Line Initiative. He has presented tutorials and lead workshops at SPLC and OOPSLA. Dr. Chastek’s current research interests include production planning, variability management, and the use of aspect-oriented development in a software product line.

Presenter: Dr. John D. McGregor

Dr. John D. McGregor is an associate professor of computer science at Clemson University, a founding partner of Luminary Software, and a Visiting Scientist at the Software Engineering Institute. He is co-author of two books on software engineering, including “A Practical Guide to Testing Object-Oriented Software Engineering.”  Dr. McGregor teaches graduate software engineering courses, courses in the SEI’s software product line curriculum, and has presented numerous tutorials at a variety of conferences. He consults with numerous software development organizations.