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Abstract: Companies in the context of mechatronic system development are faced with the challenge of constantly changing requirements for their developed system. In addition, this is becoming increasingly complex due to stronger links between the individual domains such as mechanics and electronics. In order to be able to react to these changes, it is essential that the development team itself continues to develop. Existing processes place a strong focus on economic factors and evaluate the capability of the development process based on the results, i.e. the products. In order to be able to improve the development process proactively and in a targeted manner, this research project shows a moderated self-assessment with which development teams can evaluate themselves in several defined categories in order to be able to derive concrete measures for the further development of their own process and team based on the actual and target status.
Keywords: product development, case study, systems engineering (SE), Self-Assessment, Competences
1 Introduction
As a mechatronics system development company, companies in the home appliance sector face numerous challenges specific to the industry (Henriksson und Yxkull 2017). The rapid development of new technologies and ever greater networking of products, including in the area of household appliances, means that systems are also becoming increasingly networked internally, have numerous interfaces between domains and customer requirements are evolving ever faster (Dumitrescu et al. 2021). Most of the current generation of household appliances have internet-enabled modules that can be used to control them via an app or to retrieve status data (BSH Home Appliances Group 2020). In Germany as an industrial location, there is an additional requirement for more efficient development, as outsourcing development activities to low-cost countries has become the rule rather than the exception (Rinne und Schneider 2019). All these developments mean that the demands on the development process and the development team are changing. In order to meet these requirements, the development team must continue to evolve. Two trends in particular are currently playing a role here: agile ways of thinking and acting have also become established in mechatronic system development in order to be able to react more quickly to changing requirements (Weiss et al. 2023). The focus here is on the short-cycle development of product increments, which are...