Software Product Line Engineering Basics - Model-Driven and Software Product Line Engineering - page 18

a broader concept that includes variability management and
domainanalysis,whicharenotconsideredinasoftwarefactory.
The first thing to note about SPLE is that the development
cycle produces several products or applications, while most of
the traditional development cycles focus on one application
at a time. The second point is that the products share some
concerns; usually, one can say that they belong to the same
domain. For instance, we can have several configurations
for Smart-Home that are more or less secure, autonomous,
interconnected with the Web and so on. The common parts
define what is called the commonalities . All Smart-Homes
should have at least rooms, doors, windows, and a heating
system. However, these products are different, thus, they have
some specific parts. The set of these differences is called the
variability . For instance, we can define a basic home with a
security system, another one with automatic windows, and a
third one with both features. One important task in SPLE
is to define precisely the domain of interest, to express the
commonalities and the variability of the products, and to
structure this information.
A simple and abstract view of the main processes involved
in SPLE is depicted in Figure 2.1. It involves three interacting
and iterative processes. The management process is under
the control of the business plan which decides the production
of applications. It acts as a supervisor for the two other
processes. It looks at the quality of the core assets and the
final products. The core assets development is responsible for
developing individual elements (e.g. requirements,codes,tests,
documentations) and to make them re-usable. It also defines
the product line scope and elaborates a production plan. The
former describes the set of products while the latter shows how
to build the products. The products development is responsible
for the building of products following the production plan. It
startsfromaconfigurationoftheproduct,whichisadescription
of its included features,and it then builds the expected product