4.4.2 Lessons Learned from Synchronizing Complex Systems Development within Automotive Industry

The automotive industry has encountered fundamental changes in the last decade, e.g. increased international competition, more complex and diversified products, and strongly changing product development processes. Nowadays, electrical/electronic (E/E) systems play a crucial role in vehicle development in order to offer innovative and attractive products to customers. Therefore, it is vital for an automotive OEM to master E/E systems over the entire life-cycle. Besides sound engineering, an effective project and risk management becomes more and more important. Synchronizing all the development activities and all involved stakeholders is a major challenge here. This is of key importance, as the E/E system represents a triplicate highly distributed structure, in terms of process, organization, and the product itself. This paper illustrates lessons learned from implementing synchronization management within the E/E system development as part of a major process improvement initiative. The paper starts by highlighting the paradigm shift within the development processes of an automotive OEM from “component-driven” development to “system-oriented” engineering. Based on this background the need for synchronization of all involved “players” within E/E system development will be pointed out. The development and implementation of a generic synchronization/master plan as well as the usage and tailoring of this plan for specific projects will be described. Also, embedding this E/E synchronization management within the overall vehicle development process will be discussed (e.g. how to handle changes within the development process). The paper finally highlights lessons learned during the phases of conception, implementation, and application of the generic master plan and the synchronization management process.