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Product Line Engineering Comes to the Industrial Mainstream
Author(s) -
Clements Paul C.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
insight
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2156-4868
pISSN - 2156-485X
DOI - 10.1002/inst.12241
Subject(s) - aerospace , automotive industry , portfolio , product engineering , mainstream , product (mathematics) , product line , manufacturing engineering , engineering , new product development , systems engineering , system of systems engineering , engineering management , product design , industrial engineering , computer science , business , systems design , marketing , mathematics , philosophy , geometry , theology , finance , aerospace engineering
Product line engineering (PLE) is a systems engineering discipline to engineer a portfolio of related products in an efficient manner, taking full and ongoing advantage of the products’ similarities while respecting and managing their differences. Managing a portfolio as a variable single entity, as opposed to multiple separate products, brings enormous efficiencies in production and maintenance. This paper shows that PLE has now matured into a repeatable, industrial‐strength engineering discipline. We define and explore the concepts central to modern product line engineering and illustrate how it applies in two of the most challenging systems engineering domains: aerospace and defense, and automotive.