A custom approach for variability management in automotive applications

Product lines are receiving more and more attention in software and mechanical engineering processes in the automotive industry. The benefits of using a product line approach are clearly defined in literature and widely accepted. Nevertheless, until now there are only few applications that exploit the variability knowledge during a complete development process. In this paper we argue that all the necessary prerequisites for the handling of variability are present. What is missing is on the one hand an integration of these techniques within the typical area specific development tools (as for example MATLAB/ Simulink) and on the other hand the seamless transition of variant information between different engineering tools and development levels.