Ten years of product line engineering at Danfoss

Abstract

Software and systems product line engineering (PLE) has been an established approach for reducing time to market as well as cost and increasing quality in a set of related products for two decades now. Although there is a huge body of knowledge on PLE, adopting a concrete PLE approach is still not a trivial endeavor for interested companies. With the increasing importance of development speed, the advent of agile engineering approaches, and decreasing management interest in improvements that require large organizational transformations and only show benefits after several years, companies are facing challenges in successfully adopting this approach. They often hesitate as there is no clear adoption path, nor any certainty, that the intended improvement steps will also provide added value in the short- and mid-term perspective. In consequence, a considerable amount of PLE potential still remains unexploited.