The Challenges of Designing Complex Products

In recent years, the automotive industry has moved from building mechanical systems to creating complex ‘system of systems’ products, where functionality is controlled through multiple embedded software systems. These products are the result of increasingly complex design methods that require cross-disciplinary collaborations involving many different teams, each of whom work with diverse sets of expertise and working practices. This case describes an application of the PEArL framework, to connect different collaborative activity across a large automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) in support of systems design practices. In the case presented here, the application of the PEArL framework also resulted in new organisational governance structures being adopted to embed collaborative design practices and to integrate the work of multiple design teams, both in the OEM, and along its global supply chains.