Automating the product derivation process in software product line engineering

A variety of automated approaches for software product line engineering in general and product derivation in particular have been proposed. Unfortunately due to a range of reasons, many development organisations fail to get the maximum benefit from these approaches. Worse, the way many organisations use these approaches actually hampers effective product derivation. As a foundation for the successful adoption of automated approaches in product derivation, a better understanding of the underlying activities in industrial product derivation practices is required. By consolidating current knowledge from literature and industrial experience, we have developed a process framework that comprises important tasks, which product line stakeholders have to perform during product derivation. We outline how our framework can provide a link to automated approaches by providing product derivation context and facilitating tool support for the overall process.