Configuration and variant management
Mastering multiplicity – and preserving the digital thread
In today's world, products are rarely available in just one version. Different markets, customer requirements, technical platforms, and innovations lead to a multitude of versions and variants.
Configuration and variant management keeps this variety structured—across all disciplines, development stages, and versions. It is the systematic process of managing and controlling changes to requirements, design elements, software, hardware, and IT infrastructures with the objective of ensuring consistency, traceability, and stability with regard to changes and assuring complete reproducibility of the product in its variants and versions. Ideally, configuration and variant management spans the context across all domains and engineering disciplines involved in the development, production, and service of a system and also takes into account the correct assignment of development artifacts across variants and versions.
This makes configuration and variant management a key prerequisite for the digital thread – the digital thread that connects all artifacts of a product throughout its entire lifecycle.
Configuration and variant management in the Digital Thread context
This capability is the methodological basis for the digital thread. This capability is the foundational methodology for the digital thread. Various characteristics of a product must be monitored consistently and reproducibly. To maintain this control across all disciplines involved, global configuration and variant management is required.
This method describes the ability to link artifacts from all disciplines involved in the project – such as requirements, models, test cases, or documentation – and thus establish the digital context. It is the tool that reveals which artifacts actually belong together in which variant and what dependencies exist, for example, when artifacts are shared across variants.
The technical prerequisite for the digital thread is the ability to address single artifacts individually and uniquely, as facilitated, for example, by the OSLC standard (OSLC – Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration).
The interaction between global configuration management and OSLC creates a continuous digital thread:
A common thread that links all versions, variants, changes, and dependencies across all lifecycle disciplines – from requirements and models to testing and release.
Why configuration and variant management is crucial
Without configuration and variant management, including the ability to manage global configurations, a development organization can quickly lose track of versions, statuses, and dependencies. Teams work in parallel on different variants or versions. If engineering artifacts and their dependencies are maintained manually, inconsistencies can quickly arise between requirements, models, and tests.
Well-designed configuration and variant management establishes structure and efficiency. It facilitates:
- Consistency: Every version and every variant is technically traceable and documented.
- Efficiency: Engineering artifacts can be shared, avoiding redundant work.
- Transparency: Changes and their effects remain visible across all versions and variants.
- Traceability: Requirements, models, and tests are specifically linked to each individual version and variant – the digital thread remains intact.
Success factors for state-of-the-art configuration and variant management
Success factors for effective configuration and variant management are:
- Clear product structure: Variant logic, characteristics, and rules must be defined.
- Cross-disciplinary linking: Artifacts from all disciplines involved (e.g., requirements management, modeling, and test management) must be linked according to their affiliation with one or more variants.
- Global configuration logic: The digital thread remains consistent only when all relevant artifacts are brought together in the correct context.
This improves the stability of configuration and variant management and makes the entire engineering process more transparent and comprehensible..
Configuration and variant management and other disciplines
Configuration and variant management does not stand alone – it is an integral part of a continuous toolchain:
- Optional and mandatory requirements are defined in requirements management. These may differ depending on the version or variant.
- In system modeling, different versions and variants are represented by appropriately adjusted architecture and behavior models.
- In software development, the software modules are adapted and further developed in line with the versions and variants to be implemented.
- In test management, tests are defined and executed for specific variants, and their results are assigned to the linked artifacts for clear traceability.
- Finally, these artifacts are linked together across the disciplines involved via global configurations to establish the complete digital context.
This creates a consistent view of the entire system, regardless of how many variants or versions need to be maintained.
Some examples of popular tools in variant management
IBM Global Configuration Management (GCM)
Central tool for managing configurations across disciplines. It connects requirements, models, tests, and workflows to create consistent product configurations, thereby forming the basis for the digital thread.
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If you would like to learn more about versions, variants, local and global configurations, please continue reading here: