Multi-perspective Process Variability: A Case for Smart Green Buildings

The variability scale in large-scale Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) is high and complex due to the voluminousness, dynamicity and diversity of available computing resources (people, things and software services), domain-specific processes, domain-specific elements (stakeholders, assets and contracts), and their relationships. This requires us to go beyond current variability modeling and management techniques which neglect the complexity and the diversity of relevant stakeholders, data and assets, and thus cannot cope with intelligent business and analytics requirements in dynamic environments, such as smart city management. In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis for understanding the multi-perspective variability in processes atop people, data and things in CPSs, particularly, for the sustainability governance of Smart Green Buildings (SGBs). We examine domain-specific processes and domain-specific elements and their relationships to derive a multiple-perspective variability management for SGBs. On the basis of this, we conceptualize a novel model for the multi-perspective process variability representation.