MDA (Model-Driven Architecture) as a Software Industrialization Pattern: An Approach for a Pragmatic Software Factories

In this paper we show that the MDA can be considered as a software industrialization pattern (or a software factory). Nearly all industries today are haunted with how to reduce costs, improve quality, faster time-to-market and to maximize profits. These challenges are particularly relevant to the software industry, because it still lags behind other technology sectors as regards industrialization and the timely delivery of software products. Most software are still of poor quality, always finished after deadlines (most don’t finish at all), and are very labour intensive. Here, we discuss the MDA as an approach that may help solving at the same time both problems of industrialization and ever-changing software infrastructures. We propose a MDA Engine based on a real case study in an IT services company. It is a proposal for a framework to create custom MDA tools, based on XMI, XSLT and the Visitor Pattern.