A Practical Guide to Enterprise Architecture

Every organization of any size has developed applications that have characteristics in common. Through informal means, many of these applications share common components, infrastructures, or processes. Product lines provide a way of formalizing the manner in which these applications are managed in an organization. The goal of a product line oriented organization is to maximize the benefits that come from managing groups of applications together. Reuse in a product line is a byproduct of the structure of the organization. Reducing development, quality assurance, and maintenance costs and getting products to market faster are the real benefits of product lines.