Case#ProductTechnical/OperationalOrganizationalProjectManagement 1Safetyclutchforelec- tricvehicles’enginesDespitetheuseofvirtualenvironmentsfor testing,somefaultyassumptionscanalways arise.Itisimpossibletoforeseeeverypossible outcomewithprecision.
VirtualtestingallowsHWandSWdevel- operstoworkseparately,butthiscancause issuesrelatedtotheknowledgegapbetween them:havinglittleknowledgeofwhatthe othersdoleadstosimplificationsandincon- sistencies.
Poorlaboratorytests’settingsaugmentthe riskoffaultyassumptions. 2Activehighbeam headlightIncaseoffaultyassumptions,HWproblems mayneedmuchmoretimetofixwithrespect toSWones,andcanalsoaffecttheproduct design.
Virtualtestingandassumptionsonthecom- ponents’behaviorcandetachresearchers fromreality,creatingunnecessarilycomplex solutions. 3MechatronicssystemsThecasestudyfocusedonprovidingpracticalsuggestionsratherthenexposingbenefitsandlimitationsofagile. 4LuxurybathtubsEngineersmaytendtowaitfortheircoaches tosolvetheproblemwhenapplyingagile: Scrummastersshouldenforceacooperation mindset,makingtheteamfollowashared goal.
Foragilecoaches,theabsenceofSWin someprojectscanbeachallenge.Inthese casesitisusefultofocusontheflowofac- tivitiesandonhowtheseactivitiesarepro- ducingvalueforthecompany’scustomers. 5&6MicrotiterplateUserstoriesmaybedifficulttomaintain forHWproductdevelopment:theyneedto betailoredonthedevelopmentprocessofa physicalobject. Table3.5:LimitationsofAgileinthecasestudiesanalyzed
Comparing these results with what has been achieved in Chapter 2 – and summarized in Tables 2.8, 2.9, and 2.10 – some points have been confirmed, while others did not find much evidence. In general, prototyping (as well as testing and simulations) was proved to be a key element in the agile transition. In both chapters, the need for faster and more frequent product improvements has been often mentioned. As a consequence, also the use of simulation softwares, CAx tools, Rapid prototyping, and Virtual prototyping technologies has been confirmed as part of the agile product development methodology.
Similarly, in the case studies analyzed in Chapter 3, the centrality of the customers requirements was confirmed. However, some differences in this sense are present as well. For physical products, in fact, it is essential to get the product right, according to specifications and demands, but often the customer is harder to engage, and sometimes completely absent. In this sense, the concept of “customer” could be enlarged to include any stakeholder that can affect the product requirements. For medical devices, as an example, regulations and certifications play a very similar role. Concerning its engagement, instead, this very much depends on the possibility to include him/her in the company processes. For big corporations, this might still be a challenge. Parallelly, a second obstacle is represented by the ability of developers to release prototypes and new versions often. In the analyzed papers this varied a lot, depending on the approach chosen by the team, but also on the product. In this sense, it should be kept in mind how physical products entail bigger differences among them, and a standard agile practice for all of them is hardly possible to implement.
For what concerns methods, the literature analysis performed in Chapter 2 was open to a variety of possibilities, including, as an example, Agile – Stage/Gate hybrids. Such possibilities were not verified by any case study, since almost everyone made use of Scrum or versions of it. Scrum in fact appears to be the best possible solution in case of HW products, provided that a fine-tuning and tailoring process is applied to it, using the product characteristics and customer expectations as the drivers for its adaptation.
Concluding, agile product development outside software development was proved to be successful by several applications, both at academic and industrial level.
Modern technologies are essential to support the diffusion of such an approach, making HW development closer and closer to SW development. Differently from the software domain, however, it is difficult to set up standard procedures and methods. Since physical products differ a lot, standardization is possible only within very tight borders: as an example, it is possible to suggest an agile method for the production of medical devices, but this will not necessarily be applicable in the automotive industry.
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