New product development in the context of industry 4.0: insights from the automotive components industry

Abstract

The advent of Industry 4.0 is imposing several changes and challenges to companies and industries. Connectivity, software dependence, and deep interdependency between companies in global optimized supply chains are some aspects that will be prevalent in any industry. In this context, new product development (NPD) has been changing to fit this new context. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted in seven companies in the automotive components industry to understand how NPD processes have been changing. The impact of software is particularly noteworthy. Indeed, the automotive components industry has been greatly boosted by the incorporation of software (mainly in terms of electric/electronic components). The development of software, in some cases, can represent between 60 and 80% of product development costs. Such incorporation of software makes the development of software and of automotive components to have more and more similarities. In this context, there is a clear tendency to reduce the development time, increase complexity, and make several iterations (sprints) to verify if the product is in accordance with what the customer or the market demands.