The automotive industry is facing a tremendous growth in the engineering of software-intensive systems, giving rise to various challenges. To prevent problems related to the fit of new software technologies in vehicles and the manufacturing processes, a well functioning interaction between the functions for product development and manufacturing is crucial. This is complicated by the fact that t...

C a firm developing an innovative product. Due to market pressures, production must begin soon after the product development effort is complete, which requires that an upstream supplier invests in capacity while the design of the product and production process are in flux. Because the product is ill-defined at this point in time, the firms are unable to write court-enforceable contracts that sp...

____________________________________________________________ ABSTRACT: Although product development is recognized as knowledge intensive work, we have a limited understanding of its impact on product development process performance. The mechanisms by which knowledge sharing contributes to strategic imperatives such as time-to-market and value to customers is not well understood. Despite increas...

Today, it is almost impossible to find a manufacturer who has not been significantly influenced by the quality culture, but it is evident that some are doing more to improve their product quality than others are. The so-called "Chain of Quality" through integrated product development is a useful metaphor since it recognises that quality is a continuing topic of attention throughout the product ...

Simultaneously improving project management, product development and engineering processes is for many companies crucial to surviving in a fast changing environment. However, the integration of these activities often falls back due to methodology wilderness, lack of vision or organizational misalignment. To stay competitive with its systems and software development, Alcatel has put in place an ...

Life-cycle assessment, as applied to conventional product development, can be applied in the Software Engineering domain to determine the environmental impact of a software product itself, but also the environmental impact of a software development

The search for continuous improvement in product development forces companies to look for new competitive capabilities based on a redesign of their product strategies. In particular the role of product architectures, product platforms and modularisation, becomes important in shaping the development and operations strategies. The paper offers a general framework explaining the relevant product s...

This paper presents a longitudinal case of Motorola’s R&D subsidiary in Beijing over the period 1998–2008. Through the construction of key events and changes, the paper unfolds the evolutionary process of Motorola’s R&D capability in China, and explores the mechanisms driving that evolution. We find that this R&D subsidiary evolved through four stages: from a local adaption unit performing adap...