Complexity management during the analysis of mechatronic systems

High market pressure due to the increasing customer requirements in terms of performance, quality, and price, forces the automotive industry to develop new innovative products at a high quality level. Innovative products demand the synergetic integration of different engineering domains such as mechanics, electronics and information technology being prescribed by the term of mechatronics. The integration of elements of different engineering domains leads to several advantages. However, the automotive industry is actually affected by quality problems in terms of reliability. Evidence is given by the numerous breakdowns due to electronics and the increasing number of call backs. These tendencies can be related to the increasing complexity of systems contained in the car. However the quality of products, especially of cars, has a growing influence on the purchase decision of customers. This contribution points out the correlations between mechatronics and quality in terms of reliability and the need to handle the complexity during the analysis of mechatronic systems. Basic theories of complexity management and known analysis methods have been analyzed merged and enhanced to constitute a proceeding model handling the presented requests. The paper concludes with a practical application of the proceeding model in automotive industry and an interpretation of the results.     «

High market pressure due to the increasing customer requirements in terms of performance, quality, and price, forces the automotive industry to develop new innovative products at a high quality level. Innovative products demand the synergetic integration of different engineering domains such as mechanics, electronics and information technology being prescribed by the term of mechatronics. The integration of elements of different engineering domains leads to several advantages. However, the autom...     »