This study explores the alignment of production system development processes (PSDP) with agile principles in the automotive industry. A multiple case study of eight companies reveals low overall alignment, with OEMs and subcontractors constrained by sequential, stage-gate structures, while engineering consultants show higher agility in early phases. Findings suggest gradual adoption of hybrid models, culural changes and iterative planning to enhance flexibility and responsiveness.

Daily stand-ups often deviate from their intended efficiency. This study shows that challenges like unequal participation, recurring blockers, and lack of goal orientation can be made visible through an AI-based analysis method. Validated in several iterations with real company data, the method provides transparent and data-protection-compliant results. By identifying specific improvement potentials, the approach creates a data-driven foundation for teams to optimize their meetings and their collaboration.

This paper explores the adaptation needs of employees in the context of implementing virtual reality (VR) in product development. Rather than analysing the overall process, the study focuses specifically on the employee aspects, including their roles, tasks, and challenges within the workflow. Existing work-related activities were analysed and visualized to identify inefficiencies. A set of tailored assessment criteria was created to systematically evaluate various sources of waste and process-related challenges.

Fused Layer Modeling (FLM) is one of the most popular additive manufacturing techniques. Its application is often limited caused by the procedurally anisotropy. This work addresses FLM’s weakness by examining a new path planning concept that replaces printing several adjacent parallel lines, for example in perimeters. The new technique was compared with conventionally manufactured reference samples in tensile tension and three-point-bending tests. The results show an improvement of the tensile strength in build direction of the samples by up to 40% and a reduction of anisotropy by 28%.

We reviewed 36 web-based toolkits supporting health and care design and improvement and identified five classification dimensions: novelty (novel or established tools), scope (specialised or generic), origin (research- or practice-based), motivation for use (risk reduction or benefit enhancement), and application level (individual or group use). We also identified five types of toolkit developers and seven end-user roles. Most toolkits were generic and practice-based, developed by commercial or academic actors, targeted at practitioners and leaders, and supported both individual and group use.

The pilot project initiatives using Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE), Design Automation (DA), and visual modelling techniques, at Saab Aeronautics, are presented in this work. The aim is to evaluate their practical applicability and outline how organisations can implement accelerated product development methodologies. By integrating organisational knowledge, parametric models, standardized workflows and automation tools, design lead times are significantly reduced, allowing design expertise to focus on innovation, quality, and strategic problem-solving.

Empirical studies show that adaptations of existing agile methods are necessary for developing physical products creating obstacles and challenges. This paper aggregates the gathered findings from several cross-sectional industry surveys and establishes a relationship between the extent of utilization of individual agile elements based on Scrum and the need to adapt these elements in applying agile procedural models. The emphasis of examination resides in the purpose perspective of agile elements with the aim of facilitating context-specific adaptations more effectively.

Artificial Intelligence-based Computer Vision models (AI-CV models) for object detection can support various applications over the entire lifecycle of machines and plants such as monitoring or maintenance tasks. Despite ongoing research on using engineering data to synthesize training data for AI-CV model development, there is a lack of process guidelines for the creation of such data. This paper proposes a synthetic training data creation process tailored to the particularities of an engineering context addressing challenges such as the domain gap and methods like domain randomization.

The ongoing digitization of engineering processes and the increasing prevalence of smart products create possibilities for new business models and services. Digital twins enable the collection of all required data about a smart product in order to make these possibilities a reality. This paper describes a flexible approach towards a digital product twin that is tightly integrated with existing product models while being lightweight and easy to integrate with existing IT solutions.

Neglecting challenges of distributed collaboration can lead to significant efficiency and effectiveness losses in agile, distributed development teams. The EDiT method provides support for improving distributed collaboration of development teams. To ensure acceptance, applicability, and contribution to success in industrial development practice, it is necessary to validate the EDiT method. The goal of this contribution is the development of a process model for early and incremental validation of the EDiT method in the field finally leading to a validation of the EDiT method itself.

A central part of the design process is collaboration, harnessing specialist expertise often in meetings. We understand relatively little about how meetings serve teams of designers and their work and this study uses soft systems methodology to attempt to create structures that describe and explain meetings. The results suggest extension of the boundary of interest and suggest a conceptual framework which reveals some under-addressed stages and activities which may help designers improve their meetings.

Increasing complexity of products and design processes leads to intensive collaboration of different stakeholders in technical product development. This causes a demand for suitable methods of collaboration across department interfaces, as between design and simulation. The paper investigates typical barriers of collaboration at this interface and measures to overcome them. Methods of complexity management form links based on literature and empirical data from online surveys and interview studies. The framework uses a set of structural metrics to analyse collaboration networks systematically.

Engineer-To-Order (ETO) companies develop complex one-of-a-kind products based on specific customer demands. Given the product uniqueness, the commissioning plays an important role in the product development process. However, the project variety and low data availability hinder the analysis of the commissioning processes. This paper proposes a framework for the structured analysis of commissioning processes in ETO companies by analysing the impacts from product requirements and design on the commissioning performance. A case study presents the practical application of the developed framework.

Modern products are often developed in local distributed teams involving various engineering domains. As a result, product development processes are characterized by a high degree of complexity and individuality. However, the project context is often not integrated into the project planning, which can lead to uncertainties in the processes. In addition, reflection does not take place adequately in process execution. Therefore, this paper presents a concept for agile process design that enables reducing uncertainties based on context-specific reflections and adapting the processes.

Reflection is understood as an integral part of designing and design processes. Despite the high relevance and an ongoing discussion about agile engineering, we found that reflection is rarley established in industrial practice. There is a need for an approach structuring the wide range of levels, stakeholders, objects and timing of reflections. The introduced RECAP framework is an important step towards a guideline (heuristic) for reflection in engineering projects. Based on the four dimensions objectives, stakeholders, objects, and processes it supports structured planning of reflection.

Industrial automotive development differs significantly from ideal agile conditions. Complex development structures, interlinkages between teams and non-functional physical dependencies between components result in agile constraints of scale and physicality. This qualitative study researches the influence of the product integration process on these constraints. The results show, that automotive integration characteristics such as duration, frequency, scope and transparency fail agile requirements and therefore cause constraints. Alternatives regarding IT and process design are discussed.