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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: From BigLever Software
International Software Product Line Conference Initiates Systems Engineering Track
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Greetings from Dr. Paul Clements:
I would like to share some exciting news about the flagship conference for Product Line Engineering (PLE), the International Software Product Line Conference (SPLC).
First, a bit of background: SPLC’s legacy extends all the way back to 1996, with a series of European workshops on “product family engineering.” In 2000, the first SPLC was held, and in 2005 SPLC merged with its European workshop series counterpart. Since then, SPLC has become well established as the premier forum for the PLE community, rotating venues each year among Europe, Asia, and the Americas. SPLC 2015 will be held in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, July 20-24.
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SPLC Explores New Directions for Systems and Software Product Line Engineering
The news is that for 2015, SPLC has initiated a new Systems Engineering Track to serve as a home for papers, workshops, tutorials, and a keynote about PLE in the systems arena, beyond just software. While SPLC has always tried to include systems as well as software product line engineering, there has remained an unmistakeable tilt towards product lines in which software plays a dominant role.
Through our many PLE deployments, we know that software constitutes merely one kind of shared asset configurable via feature selections, no more or less important than any other: requirements, design models, tests, calibration parameters, bill of materials, manufacturing blueprints, user documentation, training materials, and more. Indeed, in some of BigLever’s largest PLE deployments, software plays little or no role at all.
SPLC’s new Systems Engineering Track is a welcome acknowledgment of this trend. By explicitly embracing Systems Engineering, SPLC has opened the door for spotlighting some of the most innovative PLE practices emerging in industry — see, for example, previous papers regarding PLE at General Motors, Lockheed Martin, and others. This evolution of the event is creating a forum for exploring integrations with other engineering technologies essential to the future of PLE, such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM).
To underscore the importance of PLE in the Systems Engineering world, the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) chose PLE as one of the five most important new topics of interest at their International Workshop, held in January 2015. Clearly, INCOSE’s leadership acknowledges the essential role of PLE to the Systems Engineering community.
BigLever CEO, Dr. Charles Krueger, and I have been appointed co-chairs for the new Systems Engineering track. It is our goal to make it engaging, insightful, reflective of the latest trends in PLE and SE, and instructive for those attending.
And now, we ask for your assistance. If this new direction for SPLC is going to persist and flourish, we need your invovlement to make this new Systems Engineering track meaningful and successful.
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Call for Systems Engineering Papers
We encourage you to visit the SPLC 2015 website, download the Call for Papers, and consider submitting a paper about your experiences in the PLE/Systems Engineering realm.
Five-page “vision” papers are solicited, as well as the more traditional ten-page papers that explore a topic in more depth. You can also propose a tutorial or a workshop that focuses on SE-related PLE topics.
Please note that abstracts and proposals are due in late March; final submissions are due in early April.
Watching SPLC grow and adapt is personally satisfying for me, since I co-chaired the very first SPLC program committee, and served as general chair for SPLC 2004. For BigLever, SPLC has been the place where we have published some of our most seminal results and case studies, and seen many of our customers inducted into the SPLC’s Product Line Hall of Fame, the highest achievement in the PLE field.
I am delighted to see SPLC take this vital step to safeguard its role as the premier gathering for product line practitioners to share results and challenges. I invite you to participate in making this new SPLC venture a stellar success.
Best Regards,
Dr. Paul Clements
BigLever Software Vice President of Customer Success
pclements@biglever.com
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