PDF document, size 3,7 MB - ProSTEP iViP

Research & Advanced Engineering 

Compositional Variant Management 

and its Application in Embedded 

Software Development 

ProSTEP iViP Symposium 2010, Berlin 2010-04-29 

Dr. Markus Kees, Ford Forschungszentrum Aachen GmbH 

Achim Seibertz, PROSTEP IMP GmbH 

© PROSTEP IMP GmbH and Ford Forschungszentrum Aachen GmbH ● 2010 Dr. Markus Kees, Achim Seibertz 10/05/10

PROSTEP IMP – 

Integrated Mechatronic Processes 

Facts 

Established in October 2005 

8 offices in Germany 

Methods & Systems for 

Product- & Portfolio 

Management 

Process Consulting for 

Mechatronics System 

Development 

Specialization 

“Solution provider for integrated processes, 

methods and technologies for the 

development of mechatronic products“ 

Methods, Systems & 

Integrations for 

Requirements Engineering 

& Management 


Integrations for 

Compositional Variant 

Management 

Projects 

> 20 successful customer projects in the 

automotive industry 

3 successfully finalized research projects 

1 active research project 

3 ProSTEP iViP Association projects 

Methods & Systems for 

Model Based Function 

Development & 

Orientation 


Integrations for Wiring 

Harness Development 

© PROSTEP IMP GmbH ● 2010 

Achim Seibertz 10/05/10

Challenges of Variant Management 

„ The number of theoretical possible Vehicle Variants is 

higher than the number of sold Cars “ 

Product Variants 

Trend 

Complexity Driver 

Increase of Product Variants (Market Segmentation) 

Increase of Variant Product Functions 

Increase of Variant Engineering Data 

Engineering Data 

Functions 

Current Situation 

Variants are specified and managed in decentralized, discipline-specific Data 

Management Systems and Development Tools 

Decentralized & Tool specific Systems of Rules are used for Configuration 

Goal 

Development of a pervasive Variant Modeling & Management Methodology 

Support of the entire Product Creation Process 

Compatible with existing and established Specification Methods 



Product Variants correlates with Variants in the 

Engineering Data along the Development Process 

…very, very, very simplified representation 























E/E- Engineering Data are stored in different, 

non-pervasive IT-Systems 

Variants are defined 

discipline specific 

Goal: Achieve Traceability & 

Process-Support by System 

Integration 

Goal: Reduce Development 

Effort and increase Quality by 

Tool- Integration 




Variant specification in a PDM-System (Example: 

Siemens PLM Teamcenter) 

Specification of 

Variant Positions 

Specification of the 

corresponding Conditions 

Configuration of an Instance 



Variant Specification in Requirements Management 

Systems (Example: IBM Rational DOORS) 

150% Specification 

Assignments to Configuration 

are expressed by Attributes 

Configuration by means 

of Filtering for „T“ 

100% Specification 



Raumkonzept 

Raumangebot vorne inkl. Ein- / Ausstieg 

Raumangebot hinten inkl. Ein- / Ausstieg 

Ablagekonzept 

Kofferraum / Zuladung 

VDA Volumen 

min/max in l, Länge, Breite und Tiefe des Kofferraums in mm 

Gesamtfahrzeug 

Zugänglichkeit Kofferraum 


Höhe der Ladekante in mm, Höhe der Ladeöffnung und Breite der Ladeöffnung in mm 

Heckscheibenneigung 

in Grad 


The Idea of compositional 

Variant Management in the PDP 

Customer Req. 

Functional Spec. System Arch. Software Arch. Implementation 

< 

Variant Data and 

Structures along the PDP 

S 1 S 2 

S 4 

Transformation into a 

generic Variants Representation 

S 3 S 5 

Unified Representation of 

different Variant Information 

Composition of the different 

Variants Models by means of 

the overlaying Product Variants 

model 

Analysis 

Analysis of Sub- and Total- 

Model (e.g. Consistence) 

SAT CSP FOF OPT 



Methodology of Compositional Variant Management 

(Example: E/E-Development) 

1 

Rule Based Specification of 

Product Variants by Feature- 

Models 

3 

2 Definition of the Functional 

Architecture & Structure 

incl. Variants 

4 

Linking (Product Variants 

with Function Variants) 

Linking (Function Variants with 

Engineering Data) 

5 

•Derive Configuration 

of Engineering Data 

from configured 

Product Model 

•Analysis 

Engineering Data (Example E/E) 

• Requirements 

• Architecture 

• Implementation 

• Test 



Example of a simple Feature-Model 

- Product Variants of a Vehicle 

Car 

mandatory 

optional 

Chassis Transmission Engine Cruise Ctrl 

alternative 

or 

Off-Road Sport Automatic Manual Electric Gasoline Diesel Standard Adative 

needs 

excludes 

V1 

V2 

• With feature models complex variant product families and data can be described in 

a user friendly graphical manner 

• Furthermore the benefit of feature models is the transformability into propositional 

logic, which can be analyzed to check for consistence, dead features, etc. 



Methodology of Compositional Variant Management 

(Example: E/E-Development) 

1 

Rule Based Specification of 

Product Variants by Feature- 

Models 

3 

2 Definition of the Functional 

Architecture & Structure 

incl. Variants 

4 

Linking (Product Variants 

with Function Variants) 

Linking (Function Variants with 

Engineering Data) 

5 

•Derive Configuration 

of Engineering Data 

from configured 

Product Model 

•Analysis 

Engineering Data (Example E/E) 

• Requirements 

• Architecture 

• Implementation 

• Test 




Application @ 

Research & 

Advanced Engineering - Europe 

Compositional Variant Management in Model 

Based Embedded Software Development 


System landscape: Today 

Research & 

Advanced Engineering 

Process data 

Requirements 

SW 

Architecture 

Modeling & 

Code Generation 

Verification & 

Validation 

Documentation 

Calibration 

Development 

System 

DOORS 

Matlab/Simulink 

Office 

CalDesk 

TargetLink 

Embedded- 

Validator & 

Tester 

MS Word, 

VISIO,… 

RCP/HIL 

Data 

Management 

System 

eASEE.edm 

The tool chain of model based Software and function development has been 

enhanced since 1995 (Series Code Generation in 1999, formal Verification in 2004) 

Dependency of requirements and fulfillment of these had been ensured through a 

thorough process integration 

All process files have been managed with the eASEE.edm 

© Ford Forschungszentrum Aachen GmbH ● 2010 

Dr. Markus Kees 10/05/10

System landscape: Potential Future 

scenario 

Research & 


Process data 

Requirements 

Architecture 

Modeling & 



Validation 

Calibration 

Development 

System 

eASEE.rqm 

AUTOSAR 

Architecture 

Tools 


TargetLink 

Embedded- 

Validator & 

Tester 

CalDesk 

RCP/HIL 

Data 

Management 

System 

Documentation Generated 

eASEE.sdm eASEE.edm eASEE.tdm 

eASEE.cdm 

Compositional 

Variant 

information 

eASEE Engineering Data Backbone 



Linking of Engineering Data 

Research & 


Linking of engineering data of any kind. 



Methodology of Compositional Variant 

Management - Variant Management at FFA 

Research & 


1 

Feature Model 

2 

4 

Configuration 

Model 

Parameter Model 

Parameter Sets 

Offline variant management tool with meta data 

exchange to backbone and link to development tool 

Representation and configuration of 

feature model 

model configuration 

parameters 



Methodology of Compositional Variant 

Management - Simulink Integration 

Research & 


Development 

System 

XML 

• Active/selected 

system descriptions 

• VM-Data 

Data Dictionary 

• System descriptions 

• VM-Data 

• Global data lists 

XML 

Data 

Management 

System 


Meta data exchange 

File exchange 



Development 2010 

Research & 


Process data 

Requirements 

Architecture 

Modeling & 



Validation 

Calibration 

Development 

System 

eASEE.rqm 


 

CalDesk 

 

AUTOSAR 

Architecture 

Tools 

TargetLink 

 

Embedded- 

Validator & 

Tester 

RCP/HIL 

Data 

Management 

System 

Generated Documentation 

eASEE.sdm eASEE.edm eASEE.tdm 

 

eASEE.cdm 




Open challenges and Future Vision 

Research & 


Integration pilots of RQM and SDM 

Methodical integration of VM GUI into eASEE landscape 

Graphical specification & representation of all variant information analogue to 

Feature Modelling 

Rule based configuration 

Completion of future target TDM and CDM 

Full traceability of all objects transparent to the user 

Analysis capabilities of variant data 




Outlook 


Raumkonzept 

Raumangebot vorne inkl. Ein- / Ausstieg 

Raumangebot hinten inkl. Ein- / Ausstieg 

Ablagekonzept 

Kofferraum / Zuladung 

VDA Volumen 

min/max in l, Länge, Breite und Tiefe des Kofferraums in mm 


Zugänglichkeit Kofferraum 


Höhe der Ladekante in mm, Höhe der Ladeöffnung und Breite der Ladeöffnung in mm 

Heckscheibenneigung 

in Grad 


The Idea of compositional 

Variant Management in the PDP 

& its realization 

Customer Req. 

Functional Spec. System Arch. Software Arch. Implementation 

< 

Variant Data and 

Structures along the PDP 

S 1 S 2 

S 4 

Transformation into a 

generic Variants Representation 

S 3 S 5 

Unified Representation of 

different Variant Information 

v.control 

Analysis 

Composition of the different 

Variants Models by means of 

the overlaying Product Variants 

model 

Analysis of Sub- and Total- 

Model (e.g. Consistence) 

SAT CSP FOF OPT 



PROSTEP IMP Concept Tool 

v.control 

Product line and variant 

specification using feature 

modeling 

Domain specific import or 

input of variant development 

artifacts 

Compositional linkage of 

product variants and 

development artifacts 

Rule based configuration to 

compose consistent productand 

development data 

Attribute based optimization 

of product lines 

Powered by 

Fraunhofer ISST 




Thanks for your attention! 

Dr. Markus Kees 

Hybrid Vehicle Technologies / Electronics & Control 

Alternative Powertrains 

Ford Research & Advanced Engineering Europe 

e-mail: mkees@ford.com 

Achim Seibertz 

Head of Methods & Technology 

PROSTEP IMP GmbH 

e-mail: achim.seibertz@prostep.com

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