Product line engineering (PLE) solution provider BigLever is launching a PLE body of knowledge for feature-based PLE. According to the company, feature-based PLE has proven to provide improvements in time to market, efficiency, product line scalability, and product quality.
BigLever defines product line engineering as “the engineering of a product line using a shared set of engineering assets, a managed set of features and an automated means of production.”
Charles Krueger, CEO of BigLever Software, explained that as technology becomes more advanced and organizations try to remain competitive, the nature of software development is getting more and more complex and diverse with more features and products — and there is no time or room for errors. Feature-based PLE aims to reduce that complexity by introducing a feature catalog and a bill of features that contains all the information about features and options for all products and solutions in a product line. These documents can then be used to help teams make changes and fixes across their entire product line instead of having to individually update each piece or version of software.
“Feature-based PLE enables companies to establish a ‘single source of feature truth’ for an entire product family – eliminating the need for multiple feature management mechanisms across tools, processes and organizational functions. This breaks down organizational silos, improves communication and dramatically reduces time, effort and errors,” the company wrote in a statement.
The featured-based Body of Knowledge is designed to enable organizations to easily adopt PLE and become more self sufficient, Krueger explained. The Body of Knowledge will include online access to best practices, reference guides, multimedia resources, detailed process descriptions, training courses and checklists.
The Body of Knowledge also goes over ways to establish a PLE Center of Excellence so organizations have a team of experts readily available when they come across challenges, eliminating rework and false starts, according to Krueger.
“Dealing with the growing diversity and complexity of product lines across traditionally siloed disciplines is now virtually impossible,” said Krueger, BigLever Software CEO. “Feature-based PLE is gaining industry momentum because it breaks down those silos and allows companies to plan, engineer, manufacture and support product lines much more efficiently and cost-effectively.”
In addition, the company will use the Body of Knowledge as a reference source for establishing a PLE practice compliant with new ISO standards.
