Asteadyincreaseinconsumerdemands,andsevereconstraintsfrombothasomewhatdamagedenvironmentandnewlyinstalledgovernmentpolicies,requiretoday'sproductdesignanddevelopmenttobefasterandmoreefficientthaneverbefore,yetutilizingevenfewerresources.Newholisticapproaches,suchastotalproductlifecyclemodelingwhichembracesallaspectsofaproduct'slifecycle,arecurrentattemptstosolvetheseproblems.Withinthefieldofproductdesignandmodeling,featuretechnologyhasprovedtobeoneverypromisingsolutioncomponent.Owingtothetremendousincreaseininformationtechnology,totransferfromlowleveldataprocessingtowardsknowledgemodelingandinformationprocessingisabouttobringachangeinalmosteverycomputerizedapplication.Fromthisviewpoint,currentproblemsofbothfeatureframeworksandfeaturesystemsareanalyzedinrespecttostaticanddynamicconsistencybreakdowns.Theanalysisrangesfromearlystagesofdesigning(feature)conceptstofinalsystemimplementationandapplication.Forthefirsttime,anintegratedviewisgivenonapproaches,solutionsandpracticalexperience,withfeatureconceptsandstructures,providingbothafeatureframeworkanditsimplementationwithsufficientsystemarchitectureandcomputationalpowertomasterafairnumberofknownconsistencybreakdowns,whileprovidingforrobustcontextsforfeaturesemanticsandintegratedmodels.Withintoday'sheavyuseofinformationtechnologythesearepre-requisitesifthefullpotentialoffeaturetechnologyistobesuccessfullytranslatedintopractice.
