There are many factors in the environment of the platform, which contributed to its success. An important aspect was the stability of the management and the staff. Throughout the development of the platform, there were only a few changes in staffing, and management. Therefore, everybody involved was aware of the activity and its goals, and no major disruptions have occurred, not in investment, not in staffing and not in the scope of the platform. Moreover, it was originated, and continued to be a bottom-up activity, where the platform developers are close to the product groups, and know their client's wishes.

Certain other challenges were to be overcome. Over the years, several companies we acquired within PMS. This means that new, not originally envisioned, product lines would become platform users. These new product groups were treated in a similar way as the other product groups, and a similar process is used for them. Their architects became involved in the architect's network, and the platform planning and roadmaps were adapted in such a way that within time these new lines fit in. In the mean time their own roadmaps have to be altered to incrementally introduce the platform software.

Additional Information:

• Frank van der Linden, Engineering Software Architectures, Processes and Platforms for System Families, Proceedings SPLC2, Springer LNCS 2379, San Diego, August 2002, pp. 383-397
•  Frank van der Linden, Software Product Families in Europe: The Esaps and Café Projects, IEEE Software, July/August 2002, pp. 41-49
• Frank van der Linden, Jan Gerben Wijnstra, Platform Engineering for the Medical Domain, Proceedings PFE4, Bilbao, October 2001, pp. 224-237
• Ben J. Pronk, An Interface-Based Platform Approach, proceedings SPLC1, Denver, Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science v. 576, 2000, pp. 331-352
• Eelco Rommes, Jan Gerben Wijnstra, Implementing a reuse strategy: Architecture, Process and Organisational Aspects of a Medical Imaging Product family, to appear in proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Software Sciences, January 2005
• Jan Gerben Wijnstra, Components, Interfcaes and Information Models within a Platform Architecture, procedings of 3rd International Conference on Generative and Component-Based Software Engineering (GCSE 2001) Springer Verlag LNCS 2186 2001 pp. 25-35
• Jan Gerben Wijnstra, Variation Mechanisms and Multi-view Architecting in Platform-based Product Family Development, PhD. Thesis, University of Groningen, December 2004

< Previous page . . 1 2 3 4 . . Next Success Story >