A Knowledge-based Product Derivation Process and some Ideas how to Integrate Product Development

In this position paper, a product derivation process is described, which is based on specifications of known customer requirements, features, artifacts in a knowledge base. In such a knowledge base a model about all kinds of variability of a combined software/hardware systems are represented by using a logical-based representation language. Having such a language, a machinery which interprets the model is defined and actively supports the product derivation process e.g. by handling dependencies between features, customer requirements, and artifacts. Because the adaptation and new development of artifacts is a basic task during the derivation process where a product for a specific customer is developed, the evolution task is integrated in the proposed knowledge-based derivation process.