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The use of electronics in vehicles is increasing quickly and the systems are becoming increasingly complex. This makes the engineering of these advanced computer-based systems more and more difficult. In particular finding a good architecture is a prerequisite for successful design. In this study we investigate key issues related to real-world decisions regarding a car's electrical and electronic system architecture. To extract the key issues an exploratory case study was performed at a car manufacturer We used semiformal interviews complemented with a survey to validate the results. The contribution of this paper is twelve issues that reflect the situation at a car manufacturer Also, possible actions to deal with theseissues are provided.

The amount of electronics in vehicles is growing quickly, thus systems are becoming increasingly complex which makes the engineering of these software intensive systems more and more difficult. In the automotive industry the use of product line architectures enables a set of vehicles to share architecture to decrease cost and increase quality. In this study we investigate key issues related to real-world decisions regarding electrical and electronic product line architecture for heavy vehicles. To extract key issues a multiple exploratory case study at two heavy vehicle manufacturers was performed. We used semi-formal interviews complemented with a survey to validate the results. The contribution of this study is 14 issues that reflect the situation at the two companies. Many of the identified issues relate to non technical areas such as organization, process, methods and tools, and management. Moreover, possible actions to deal with these issues are discussed.

Context: In many traditional industry applications, including automotive, process automation and manufacturing automation, software plays a crucial role as an enabler in the introduction of new functionality and to stay competitive. System and software architecture plays an important part in ensuring the qualities of the systems. However, the design of the architecture may be neglected during system development, whilst development efforts are centered on implementing new functionality.

Objective: We present the challenges, problems, and success factors that are central to the architectural development of software intensive systems as judged by practitioners.

Method: The method used consisted of three steps. First, we used semi-structured interviews to collect data in an exploratory manner. In a second step, a survey based on issues extracted from the structured interview data was used to investigate the occurrence of these issues in a wide range of organizations. In order to identify and suggest solutions to the issues that were considered important, we finally performed root cause analysis workshops.

Results: A total of 21 issues have been identified, and examples of these issues are (1) there is a lack of process in architecture development, (2) there is a lack of methodology or models for evaluating business value when choosing architecture, (3) there is a lack of clear long-term architectural strategy, and (4) processes and methods are of less value than the knowledge and competence of individuals.

Conclusion: In conclusion, we are convinced that the following success factors are crucial components in developing software intensive systems: (1) defining an architectural strategy, (2) implementing a process for architectural work, (3) ensuring authority for architects, (4) clarifying the business impact of the architecture, and (5) optimization at the project portfolio level, instead of optimizing each project.

It is widely accepted that awareness of architectural decisions enables better management and planning of system evolution, refactoring, and modernization efforts. In this paper we report data from interviews with software architects about how practitioners utilize architecture during system evolution. Our results show, despite the widely shared view that long-lived systems are better off with strong architectures; basic architecture-centric practices are not followed systematically. The key gap we observe is in correct and timely communication of architectural issues. This overall finding is not surprising. However, our data also contributes to how architecture knowledge management activities can be focused for most benefit throughout a system's lifespan. While the often-referenced problem is lack of time spent on documentation and design practices, our interviews show that lack of quality attribute reasoning early on, and during the lifespan of the system is a key contributor to failing to use architecture knowledge effectively during evolution.

Within the automotive industry, up to 90 percent of all new features are dependent on electronics and software. Consequently, the amount of software and electronics in vehicles is rapidly increasing. The same trend has been observed in other domains, such as telecom, avionics, trains, and more. An important factor in dealing with this inherent complexity is the use of a system architecture. The architecture is typically an enabler for both efficiency and effectiveness in the development of software-intensive systems but not directly connected to the customer needs. For example, the architecture can increase the agility of upcoming product releases in order to cost effectively satisfy future customer needs. By combining two parallel multiple case studies, one focusing on the architects view, and the other one focusing on the managerial perspective, we have identified six limitations. Our results indicate that the focus is on customer requirements for the current product, on the expense of the internal requirements related to the development of the architecture and long-term profitability. Further, even if the early phases of development are identified as a success criterion, they are still not given enough attention.

In this paper we present a new method for makingdecisions on integration strategy for in-vehicle automotive systems.We describe the problem of choosing integration strategy and wedescribe the method, which is a combination of the ArchitectureTradeoff Analysis Method, ATAM, and the Analytical HierarchyProcess, AHP. We exemplify the use of the proposed method byevaluating the integration decisions concerning the physicalconnection of a realistic example system; a computer controlledautomatic gearbox. We present analysis on the use of the method andconclude that the method has several benefits compared to ATAM orAHP used individually. The method firstly supports a structured wayof listing system goals, and secondly, it also supports the makingof design decisions.