Improving the software development for multiple projects by applying a platform strategy for mechatronic systems

SUMMARY Almost 25 years ago the first electronic control units were introduced in the market and since then, a new field in engineering called mechatronics was built for the first time in the late 1980s. Since then the complexity has increased continuously doubling the lines of code in control units roughly every five years. In order to handle this complexity new processes were developed for the software development to be able to maintain the quality leading to a new European Standard ISO 15504 (SPICE). About five years ago, after it became more and more obvious that looking at software processes alone was not enough any more, the standard had to be increased to the whole system (or product). This involved the complete mechanic and electronic development. The amount of documentation has come to such a point that is not acceptable for development departments anymore. Therefore it is time to think about not only re‐use in product development and testing results but also in documentation and process development results. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. In the automotive industry product complexity is increasing exponentially and many variants of the same product are maintained in the market (Figure taken from Alexander Poth, SPI of the requirements engineering process for embedded systems using SPICE. Software Process Improvement and Practice 2007; 12(6):505–610). It is a key skill of big automotive companies to manage a professional traceable product and functional architecture which assures a high automotive SPICE capability level in all variants as well. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.