Agile Predevelopment of Production Technologies for Electric Energy Storage Systems – A Case Study in the Automotive Industry

Curtailing development periods in the automotive industry require concurrent predevelopment of new products and production technologies. Volatile requirements and complex interdependencies are the main challenges which agile methods originating from software development are designed for. To examine transferability of several agile methods to the predevelopment of hardware, the authors first theoretically analysed existing methods regarding their potential. While adopting the most promising methods, a case study regarding the production technology for electrical energy storage systems was conducted. It showed that many agile aspects and tools are easily adoptable and help developers in the early stage depending on group size and complexity. They contribute by ensuring that complexity remains manageable, encouraging close teamwork, improving information circulation and supporting transparency. Thus agile methods supplement concurrent predevelopment.