Salion, Inc.: A Software Product Line Case Study

Abstract

This report is another in a series of Software Engineering Institute (SEI(SM)) case studies of organizations that have adopted the software product line approach for developing systems. It details the story of Salion, Inc., an enterprise software company providing Revenue Acquisition Management solutions tailored to the unique needs of automotive suppliers. Salion's solutions enable suppliers to organize and manage their disparate customer-interfacing activities as one coordinated business process, resulting in higher revenues, profit margins, and customer satisfaction. This case study is unique in that Salion did not have substantial experience in its application area, although its key designers and strategists were knowledgeable about related domains. Salion pursued a reactive approach to its product line that let it respond flexibly to spontaneous business opportunities and that significantly lowered the cost of adopting the product line paradigm to its software system development. This case study describes relevant dimensions of Salion's context, how it approached several product line practice areas that were key to its strategy, the benefits gained through its product line, lessons learned, and the major thematic aspects of the Salion story.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 01, 2002
Accession Number
ADA412311

Entities

People

  • Linda M. Northrop
  • Paul C. Clements

Organizations

  • Carnegie Mellon University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Agile Software Development
  • Application Software
  • Case Studies
  • Commerce
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Department Of Defense
  • Domain Specific Programming Languages
  • Engineering
  • Extreme Programming
  • Html
  • Information Systems
  • Lessons Learned
  • Organizational Structure
  • Software Development
  • Software Development Tools

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Agricultural Chemistry/Soil Science
  • Software Engineering.
  • Systems Analysis and Design