When creating a family of systems, i.e. several systems of similar type which differ within some aspects, it is desirable to be able to express these differences already at the level of the specification, and to automatically obtain systems from it which are ready to run. The use of generic methods may lead to substantial progress in this area. This report explores two aspects: parameterization concepts at the specification level, which can be used to describe variants of a system, and generator programs, which produce runnable systems from prefabricated components.