Abstract This paper deals with the story and experiences of setting up a new start-up company with the ambition to scale using a software-based product. The paper is written by researchers for researchers interested in doing the same thing. The paper concludes that it can be very beneficial for research as the startup-can be seen as a data collection machine, but to set up a start-up company, comes with unforeseen problems along the way. A few of them involves: Do not rely on rational arguments (only), when marketing your product. Expect long lead-times. Work with multiple threads and secure funding early to ensure that you can finance your startup. Finally, you need to be committed, and you have to have a strategy to manage both your research and your commercial activities.

In this study, we have brought several knowledge management theories and practices together and have investigated the valuable aspects in each one of them. Throughout our research, we have enabled knowledge reuse to be a guiding principle and have attempted to formulate an improved method for documenting knowledge. The focus has been to create actionable and reusable knowledge presented at the right time, to the right audience in a digitally condensed format that may hopefully will lead to improved decision-making, thereby potentially driving innovation and effectively reducing overall product realization lead-time. We have explored the effect of the Engineering Checksheet concept in two separate case studies where it was implemented in a real-life setting. The concept showed positive results as a knowledge carrier both for reuse by experienced and novice users.

This paper presents an educational game fostering a new experience-based approach to teaching knowledge transfer using a codification strategy alone. The goal is to address and highlight some common issues and challenges that occur during knowledge transfer in product development and that are often difficult for especially students to grasp through exclusively a theoretical teaching approach. The game is introduced to 60 students in the final year of their Master's curriculum. In parallel, the game has been applied in a similar setting in a comparable higher educational institution, as well as in a product development organization.“Sometimes you win—other times you lose and learn.”

In multi-domain product development organizations, there is a continuous need to transfer captured knowledge between engineers to enable better design decisions in the future. The objective of this paper is to evaluate how engineering knowledge can be captured, disseminated and (re)used by applying a knowledge reuse tool entitled Engineering Checksheet (ECS). The tool was introduced in 2012 and this evaluation has been performed over the 2017–2018 period. This case study focused on codified knowledge in incremental product development with a high reuse potential both in and over time. The evaluation draws conclusions from the perspectives of the knowledge workers (the engineers), knowledge owners and knowledge managers. The study concludes that the ECS has been found to be valuable in enabling a timely understanding of technological concepts related to low level engineering tasks in the product development process. Hence, this enables knowledge flow and, in particular, reuse among inexperienced engineers, as well as providing quick and accurate quality control for experienced engineers. The findings regarding knowledge ownership and management relate to the need for clearly defining a knowledge owner structure in which communities of practice take responsibility for empowering engineers to use ECS and as knowledge evolves managing updates to the ECS.

Manufactures, developing products, need to adapt and improve their practices taking advantage of technology advancements and simultaneously develop products and solutions to fit a new world. This paper discusses how societal and technological trends drive the need for change and evolution in what is called Systems Engineering Design (SED), indicating a systems view on engineering design. Through an analysis and selected examples it is argued that SED capabilities need to better address the width and complexity of design problem, takes advantages of increased computational power and sensing technologies to master future challenges. An important factor for successful deployment and change in industrial context, is the need for interactive and visual aids and easily accessible support methods. This can pave the way also for advanced SED support

Visual Planning has shown strong benefits for its easy-to-use layout and ability to plan projects with little effort and a low threshold to the method. However, limitations of the physical solution becomes apparent as more development are conducted in distributed teams where information becomes difficult to share and interact with. This paper presents challenges extracted from a literature review, combined with interviews and observations in nine case companies and concludes that there is a great importance, that despite digitalization, maintain a strong emphasis on preserving the meeting.

Globalization is constantly increasing; companies are opening offices in different countries and having international partners. The ability of managing global projects is becoming an indispensable part of the companies’ competency portfolio in order to survive in the fierce competition. This research aims to provide an efficient and lean methodology for companies that want to be efficient at managing global projects. This paper contributes to the project management literature by expanding the knowledge on pulse methodology with a new methodology called digital pulse methodology, which helps companies to manage their global projects. Pulse methodology is a well-known and widely used methodology in Sweden for managing deviations in product development. Companies appreciate its simplicity and its lean tools. However, previous studies show that it is not efficient in global projects and there are a number of requirements it must fulfill in order to do so. We developed digital pulse methodology as an expansion on baseline pulse methodology aiming to improve the appreciated methodology towards making it fulfill the given requirements, thus help companies to manage deviations in global projects. We tested the new methodology by making the case company use it over a three months period. We gathered the results of the requirement tests along with the other benefits of the methodology using observations and interviews.

This paper presents the results of an empirical study of a project whose aim was to develop a driveline for commercial vehicle applications containing a totally new mechatronic sub-system with a significant amount of new functions and interfaces. The purpose of the empirical study was to identify areas where explicit knowledge management efforts are needed in the development process of a mechatronic systems integrator. The results show that the management of knowledge related to component/system interfaces is not addressed neither in the state of practice nor the state of the art. Based on these findings, the method of engineering checklists to manage interface-related knowledge was found suitable. Methods on how to implement engineering checklists however are largely lacking and the main contribution of this paper is a method dedicated to creating engineering checklists from a knowledge management perspective. The evaluation of the developed method indicates a high level of both usefulness and usability of the method in the processes of the studied company along with potential improvement mainly regarding the instructions for the application of the method.

A global heavy truck development organization is engaged in an aggressive campaign to improve its efficiency, speed, and effectiveness in developing new products. One of the cornerstones of this initiative is knowledge management, which is recognized as a significant challenge in part because so few practical tools exist to help manage knowledge growth. This paper presents the results of a collaborative project to develop key performance indicators (KPIs) for knowledge management in a lean product development context. We present a framework that outlines three key touch points where product development organizations should focus attention in order to encourage rapid knowledge growth and effective knowledge reuse in a project-oriented matrix organization. We then outline the collaborative approach used to develop KPI's for these touch points, along with preliminary results and future work.

The idea of lean product development (LPD), with Toyota used as the main case in point of demonstrating its abilities, has gained attention among managerial levels of companies dealing with product development. Allegedly the main gains of LPD are a high rate of successful projects in terms of cost and quality along with shorter lead times as well as fewer overruns in time and budget. This paper investigates the lean product development concept in comparison with established models in the current product development paradigm in order to map out the main differences. It also compares LPD to the way product development is carried out in practice on the example of two large European automotive companies. The results show that the main differences, among others, can be found first in the way knowledge is honored and managed, and second how and when decisions are made along the process. From the discussion of the results, conclusions are drawn for potential improvements to traditional product development models.

Product development as a field of practice and research has significantly changed due to the general trends of globalization changing the enterprise landscapes in which products are realized. The access to partners and suppliers with high technological specialization has also led to an increased specialization of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Furthermore, the products are becoming increasingly complex with a high functional and technological content and many variants. Combined with shorter lifecycles which require reuse of technologies and solutions, this has resulted in an overall increased knowledge intensity which necessitates a more explicit approach towards knowledge and knowledge management in product development. In parallel, methods and IT tools for managing knowledge have been developed and are more accessible and usable today. One such approach is knowledge-based engineering (KBE), a term that was coined in the mid-1980s as a label for applications which automate the design of rule-driven geometries. In this thesis the term KBE embraces the capture and application of engineering knowledge to automate engineering tasks, regardless of domain of application, and the thesis aims at contributing to a wider utilization of KBE in product development (PD). The thesis focuses on two perspectives of KBE; as a process improvement IT method and as a knowledge management (KM) method. In the first perspective, the lack of explicit regard for the constraints of the product lifecycle management (PLM) architecture, which governs the interaction of processes and IT in PD, has been identified to negatively affect the utilization of KBE in PD processes. In the second perspective, KM theories and models can complement existing methods for identifying potential for KBE applications. Regarding the first perspective, it is concluded that explicit regard for the PLM architecture decreases the need to develop and maintain software code related to hard coded redundant data and functions in the KBE application. The concept of service oriented architecture (SOA) has been found to enable an the explicit regard for the PLM architecture.. Regarding the second perspective, it is concluded that potential for KBE applications is indicated by: 1.) application of certain types of knowledge in PD processes 2.) high maturity and formalization of the applied knowledge 3.) a codification strategy for KM and 4.) an agreement and transparency regarding how the knowledge is applied, captured and transferred. It is also concluded that the formulation of explicit KM strategies in PD should be guided by knowledge application and its relation to strategic objectives focusing on types of knowledge, their role in the PD process and the methods and tools for their application. These, in turn, affect the methods and tools deployed for knowledge capture in order for it to integrate with the processes of knowledge origin. Finally, roles and processes for knowledge transfer have to be transparent to assure the motivation of individuals to engage in the KM strategy.

This paper describes an empirical study of a driveline development project, featuring a new mechatronic sub-system, aiming to investigate the effect of knowledge gaps regarding the new sub-system on the development process. Findings indicate that knowledge gaps regarding interfaces and suppliers of the new sub-system and a lack of appropriate processes, methods and IT-tools have negatively affected requirements management. A set of recommendations on likely knowledge gaps when introducing new mechatronic sub-systems and how to bridge them prior to development project initiation are presented.

Over a century, automotive engineering was a mainly mechanical principle. Mechanical engineering has a much longer history, with methodology research coming up around 150 years ago. Only in recent years mechatronic thinking has been entering the scene, leading to first mechatronics-based process models, which are however not consistently applied in industrial practice, yet. This paper investigates how state-of-the-art systems engineering methodology can be brought closer together with automotive practice. It proposes steps towards a better theory/practice fit of engineering methodology.