This paper establishes some theses derived out of validation aspects within the medical domain about product family engineering (PFE). It reflects theoretical and practical ideas which were considered in the medical domain at Siemens medical solutions Health Services Image Management Solutions, further referred as SHS. There are several very interesting aspects by applying the PFE assets in an environment where conventional product engineering was done according to the V-model of software development. PFE is a promising approach for software development by satisfying the following requirements: • short time to market by significant reuse—but do a short and efficient domain engineering • better quality by reusing previously tested components—but only if change management aspects are strongly considered and modelled • better change management and product family evolution by applying an architecture encompassing variability and planning for evolution • For many product families it will not be feasible to deliver different SW products as such—one single CD, encompassing all products of the family will be delivered representing each product of the family and at compilation time or installation time or run time the actual product will be “configured”. • Thus, methods for configuration management in PFE have to be developed. • New methods for derivation are the generative methods.