Integrated production strategy and reuse scenario: A CoFAQ model and case study of mail server system development

One of the core problems in software product family (SPF) is the coordination of product building and core asset development, specifically the integration of production strategy decision and core asset scenario selection. In the current paper, a model of Cost Optimization under Functional And Quality (CoFAQ) goal satisfaction constraints is developed. It provides a systematic mechanism for management to analyze all possible products and evaluate various reuse alternatives at the organizational level. The CoFAQ model facilitates decision-makers to optimize the SPF development process by determining which products are involved in the SPF (i.e. production strategy) and which reuse scenario for each module should be selected to implement the SPF toward minimum total developing cost under the constraints of satisfying functional and quality goals. A two-phase algorithm with heuristic (TPA) is developed to solve the model efficiently. Based on the TPA, the CoFAQ is reduced to a weighted set-covering problem for production strategy decision and a knapsack problem for the reuse scenario selection. An application of the model in mail server domain development is presented to illustrate how it has been used in practice.