Product Generation Engineering: efficient and effective to innovative drivetrain solutions

摘要

Innovations are the result of transferring recognized customer value (product profile) into a new product (invention) and distributing and establishing that product in the market (diffusion) [Schumpeter 1934]. In opposite to the sometimes presented opinion stating that innovations are based on sudden inspirations, innovation is a hard and time-consuming work. In many cases an aha-moment occurs, but it arises from exhaustive dealing with the given task. Case studies show that the first product generation often lack the amount of maturity necessary to be thriving in the market. Hence products are often engineered further in subsequent product generations, which then lead to true success. The following chapters will first highlight product generation engineering and related research fields. Afterwards the main purpose of this paper is derived. To answer the research questions a long-term case study on the dual mass flywheel is presented and the approach of product generation engineering enhanced. Finally an outlook on current research topics is given. In this Plenary Lecture to the VDI Conference Drivetrain for Vehicles 2016 the theory of PGE is introduced by several selected industrial examples.