A pragmatic approach for supporting integrated product development

Integrated product development is a well-known methodology with the goal to optimize development processes in a holistic manner. Many industrial companies have tried to adopt this or similar methodologies, e.g., concurrent engineering. However, the introduction of these methodologies has not always been successful. The circumstances in industrial companies, such as time pressure, immense quality requirements or existing methods aggravate the introduction of new methods and tools. Furthermore, it is often overlooked that every project in the development department is different because the processes are determined by the content, i.e., the product to be developed, which obviously gives rise to new and critical aspects in every project. In this paper a concise and pragmatic approach to support integrated product development is presented. On the one hand, this approach is based on the conscious use of methods like QFD (quality function deployment), FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis), project management, and early determination of2product properties. On the other hand, a central element of2the approach are simple database systems that enable designers to maintain an overview of projects - for example the administrative aspects, e.g., the time-line or the project contents, i.e., the aspects of a product that are still undeveloped or uncertain. The approach is being developed in cooperation with a mid-size company in the automotive supplier industry. The development of the database system and the selection and adaptation of methods is based on a detailed process analysis, which goal is to identify weak points by means of a systematic procedure. This procedure is characterized by a stepwise process analysis. Together with the designers in the development department, the use of already introduced methods is currently improved. At the same time some new methods and tools are being introduced in order to support the important aspects of the development process.