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

摘要

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.