A systems engineering framework for integrated automotive development

Automotive development faces tightening regulatory requirements, shortening development cycle times, and growing complexity. To cope with such an environment, it is moving from a traditional evolutionary to a systems engineering approach. Great effort is being made for a shift from the traditional component focus, which has been enhanced by concurrent engineering, to a more broadened view supported by systems thinking. This broader view, however, is in practice strongly focused on the product elements of the system. This paper proposes a systems engineering framework for integrated automotive development—the total view approach. It is a modeling framework that integrates the product, its life cycle processes and their associated organizations throughout the requirements, functional and physical analysis processes, at all levels of the product breakdown structure, deriving attributes as emergent properties of a whole integrated system. The paper justifies the framework through a review of traditional and current automotive development and two case studies. A major benefit of the application of the framework is the ability to investigate early in the product development process the interactions between requirements and attributes not only of the product, but also of its life cycle processes and their associated organisations. This can lead to better product quality, lower life cycle cost, shorter development time, and manageable complexity. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Eng 7: 153–166, 2004