ABSTRACT
Product line engineering (PLE) is an approach for engineering a portfolio of similar products in an efficient manner, taking full advantage of the products’ similarities while respecting and managing the variation among them. Modern PLE approaches rely on the concept of feature to describe the distinguishing characteristics among products in the product line and as the basis to manage variation among the engineering artifacts that represent those products. PLE has long been used to manage and resolve the variation present across the engineering assets in the systems engineering “V.” However, as PLE matures, we find enterprises seeking to adopt PLE not just in engineering, but at all levels of their organization, including areas such as product marketing, portfolio planning, manufacturing, supply chain management, product sales, and more. For each of the many stakeholders at levels all throughout an organization, what is a feature? This chapter presents an answer to that question in the form of an ontology for the concept of “feature.” The ontology was derived from, and has been validated in, some of the largest and most complex product lines in existence today.
