Reijo Sulonen

Towards a general ontology of configuration

This article presents a generalized ontology of product configuration as a step towards a general ontology of configuration, which is needed to reuse and share configuration knowledge. The ontology presented consists of a set of concepts for representing the knowledge on a configuration and the restrictions on possible configurations. The ontology is based on a synthesis of the main approaches to configuration. Earlier approaches are extended with new concepts arising from our practical experience on configurable products. The concepts include components, attributes, resources, ports, contexts, functions, constraints, and relations between these. The main contributions of this work are in the detailed conceptualization of knowledge on product structures and in extending the resource concept with contexts for limiting the availability and use of resources. In addition, constraint sets representing different views on the product are introduced. The ontology is compared with the previous work on configuration. It covers all the principal approaches, that is, connection-based, structure-based, resource-based, and function-based approaches to configuration. The dependencies between the concepts arising from different conceptualizations are briefly analyzed. Several ways in which the ontology could be extended are pointed out.

Modelling generic product structures in STEP

Industrial companies need powerful data modelling mechanisms, e.g. classification, for the description of their products. The companies that adapt their products to the needs of individual customers in a routine manner have perhaps the most urgent needs. They must efficiently describe large numbers of product variants. STEP Application Protocol 214 (AP 214) for the automotive industry also addresses the modelling of product variants, i.e. generic product structure modelling. In addition to AP 214, the same mechanisms are needed in other standardization efforts as well, e.g. STEPlib of AP 221 and PLIB. STEP, however, does not include a mechanism for using classification and inheritance for modelling products of an individual company. These facilities are included in EXPRESS, but EXPRESS can only be used for describing the data schema to be standardized. The fundamental structure of STEP, therefore, prohibits a company from modelling its products in an object-oriented manner. This is an issue that may seriously affect the future of STEP as a general product-modelling methodology. The problems and possibilities of extending STEP in this direction within its current structure are discussed and a new mechanism is outlined as an alternative solution.

State-of-the-practice in product configuration — a survey of 10 cases in the Finnish industry

The design and production of goods that satisfy the special needs of individual customers are of central interest to the European industry. A major trend is to improve customer specific adaptation with configurable products. We are interested in the methods, practices and tools that support product configuration tasks. The research described in this paper is meant to guide our future work. We have 1) established a framework for understanding the problem area of product configuration in a fairly wide sense by identifying a number of factors and 2) carried out ten actual case studies using the proposed framework.

Implementing requirements engineering processes throughout organizations: success factors and challenges

This paper aims at identifying critical factors affecting organization-wide implementation of requirements engineering (RE) processes. The paper is based on a broad literature review and three longitudinal case studies that were carried out using an action research method. The results indicate that RE process implementation is a demanding undertaking, and its success greatly depends on such human factors as motivation, commitment and enthusiasm. Therefore, it is essential that the RE process is useful for its individual users. Furthermore, the results indicate that organizations can gain benefits from RE by defining a simple RE process, by focusing on a small set of RE practices, and by supporting the systematic usage of these practices. q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Multiple abstraction levels in modelling product structures

Abstract The need for product customisation is driving industrial companies towards a very large product variety, which affects many functions of a company, including the after-sales. Systematic maintenance records of very different product individuals cannot be kept without an abstract view to the population of delivered products. However, the older the product individual, the less systematically recorded information there usually is about it. We defined a novel mechanism based on generic models of product individuals organised into a specialisation hierarchy to support multiple abstraction levels. For creating such hierarchies, we defined a set of transformation operations on models.

Process-based view of product data management

Abstract Many companies consider acquiring a product data management system (PDMS) to reduce the delays and costs caused by inefficient product data management. There are, however, considerable differences between the various commercially available PDMSs, starting from the different meanings of basic concepts, such as document or document version. Before evaluating various PDMSs and their features, a company should analyze the processes in which the PDMS is going to be used. This paper describes two common processes: the development and delivery processes of configurable products. To a large extent product data is expressed as documents, and consequently engineering document management is one of the main functions of a PDMS. The rest of the paper discusses general requirements for document management within a PDMS and the particular requirements implied by the two process types.

The role of structured content in a personalized news service

Digitalization of content and exponential growth of the Internet and electronic commerce are changing the media industry. The availability of structured content enables new ways to produce and deliver information. The paper explains the role of semantic metadata in developing content for an adaptive news service in the SmartPush-project. In SmartPush, news content is categorized using semi-automatic tools and pre-defined vocabularies. Metadata enhanced content is then matched against user profiles to provide customers with a personalized news service. After providing the personalized news to the customer, the SmartPush system adapts the personalization based on user feedback. The paper discusses the requirements of personalized content services and challenges in an approach based on structured metadata. We describe how supporting ontologies for the content were developed and maintained and what kinds of tools were developed to support the structured metadata creation. We also present some results of the pilot phase of the project and introduce some of the issues observed during the system implementation and in the performed field trial.

4CC: A Framework for Managing Software Product Development

Abstract Managing software product development is challenging, especially for small companies in which a balance has to be struck between development flexibility and management control while working under tight schedule and resource constraints. While there exists several approaches to software process improvement, such as the CMM and SPICE reference frameworks, these models focus on the software process for customer projects in large organizations. Small product-oriented companies require a more holistic and practical view to software engineering management that combines business and development considerations and has a clear product focus. This article presents a general framework for managing software product development in small organizations. The framework combines business and process management through four cycles of control: (1) strategic release management provides the interface between business management and product development; (2) release project management handles the development of individual product versions; (3) iteration management deals with the incremental development of product functionality within release projects, and, (4) mini-milestones are used for daily or weekly task scheduling and monitoring to get an indication of system status during development. The framework can be used both to assess the current state of development in the organization, as well as a blueprint for improving or reengineering product development management.

Supporting virtual software projects on the Web

A growing share of all software development project work is being done by geographically distributed teams. To satisfy, shorter product design cycles, expert team members for a development project may need to be recruited globally. Yet to avoid extensive travelling or replacement costs, distributed project work is preferred. Current generation software engineering tools and associated systems, processes, and methods were for the most part developed to be used within a single enterprise. Major innovations have lately been introduced to enable groupware applications on the Internet to support global collaboration. However, their deployment for distributed software projects requires further research. In particular, groupware methods must seamlessly be integrated with project and product management systems to make them attractive for industry. We outline the major challenges concerning distributed (virtual) software projects. Based on our experiences with software process modeling and enactment environments, we then propose approaches to solve those challenges.

Product Configurations - An Application for Prototype Object Approach

Product configuration management is presented as a practical application for a prototype-based object model. Data model requirements for a configuration system are first introduced using a realistic example from industry. Problems with the traditional type-instance model in this application domain are then identified and given as motivation for the prototype approach. A prototype-based object model with inheritance tree transformations, constraints and component relationships is presented as a tool for expressing dynamic configuration data. Finally, a sample configuration process is described using the prototype object model.