Industrialization of Research Tools: the ATL Case

Research groups develop plenty of tools aimed at solving real industrial problems. Unfortunately, most of these tools remain as simple proof-of-concept tools that companies consider too risky to use due to their lack of proper user interface, documentation, completeness, support, etc that companies expect from commercial-quality level tools. Based on our tool development experience in the AtlanMod research team, specially regarding the evolution of our ATL model transformation tool, we argue in this paper that the best solution for research teams aiming to create high-quality and widely-used tools is to industrialize their research prototypes through a partnership with a technology provider.