Quality attributes assessment for feature-based product configuration in software product line

Product configuration based on a feature model in software product lines is the process of selecting the desired features based on customers' requirements. In most cases, application engineers focus on the functionalities of the target product during product configuration process whereas the quality attributes are handled until the final product is produced. However, it is costly to fix the problem if the quality attributes have not been considered in the product configuration stage. The key issue of assessing a quality attribute of a product configuration is to measure the impact on a quality attribute made by the set of functional variable features selected in a configuration. Current existing approaches have several limitations, such as no quantitative measurements provided or requiring existing valid products and heavy human effort for the assessment. To overcome theses limitations, we propose an Analytic Hierarchical Process (AHP) based approach to estimate the relative importance of each functional variable feature on a quality attribute. Based on the relative importance value of each functional variable feature on a quality attribute, the level of quality attributes of a product configuration in software product lines can be assessed. An illustrative example based on the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) software product line is presented to demonstrate how the proposed approach works