Pre-Packaged Variability for Product Derivation in Product Lines

Product configurators are widely used to generate products out of the vast amount of potential variants in product families. This is a complex task that is hampered by the fact that configuration models are abstractions of the real world and cannot contain all dependencies between the artifacts and the environment. For embedded systems this is crucial because calibration is used to adjust the product to its operating environment. In this paper we show how prepackaged variability makes the configuration of complex embedded systems easier. Packages of artifacts known to work well together are introduced into the configuration model and used during product derivation. Functionality of these artifacts is shown to the outside of the package. Based on this functionality the packages are selected and integrated into the product. We give an industrial example and show how the concept of packages can be formalized in configuration models used by the structure-based configuration approach.