Shorten Time-to-Market. Product Line Engineering as a booster for fast introduction of new technologies

Related Vendors

FAULHABER Drive Systems

Wuxi InfiMotion Technology Co., Ltd.

The development of new technologies and product variants presents companies with the challenge of quickly integrating these into their products and services. One method that can help to shorten the time-to-market is product line engineering.

Manuela Kohlhas from Pure Variants from PTC is a marketing expert with over a decade of experience and a focus on B2B technology companies.

According to McKinsey, the Covid-19 pandemic has marked the technological turning point for companies and permanently changed them. They are now implementing changes 43 times faster than expected. This means that new technologies are being introduced on average in less than a month, whereas it previously took almost two years. However, to keep pace with this speed, companies need the right tools and methods.

The comeback of the Technology Adoption Curve.

The Technology Adoption Curve describes the spread and acceptance of new technologies in society. It categorizes adopters - from the innovators to the laggards - and offers insight into their behavior and attitudes towards innovations. The concept was first explained by the widely known management consultant Geoffrey Moore in his book "Crossing the Chasm" in 1991.

Companies that want to introduce new technologies quickly need to understand the stages described by Moore and develop appropriate strategies to successfully market their products and services. Product Line Engineering (PLE) can assist with this.

What is Product Line Engineering?

Product Line Engineering is a method of software development that aims to improve efficiency and speed in the introduction of new technologies. Unlike traditional approaches, where each software solution is developed individually, PLE is based on the reuse of components and code. This allows companies to create product lines that consist of various variants but build on common core components. This way, they can develop and bring new products to market quickly and cost-effectively.

What benefits does Product Line Engineering offer?

• Reuse: By reusing components and code, companies can significantly reduce their development time, lower costs, and thus achieve a significant increase in efficiency.

• Flexibility: PLE allows users to quickly respond to changing requirements and customer wishes by adapting existing components or creating new variations.

• Quality Improvement: The use of common core components allows for high consistency and better quality of products.

• Scalability: PLE enables companies to continuously expand their product lines and add new variants to quickly and easily cover different markets and changing customer needs.

By increasing efficiency in product development, costs also decrease. According to an Oliver-Wyman-study, companies can reduce their total costs by up to 20 percent if they focus on the functions particularly valued by customers in product development and at the same time avoid unnecessary complexity and rarely used functions. And this is exactly where PLE excels.

Use in the automotive industry

The automotive industry has been using PLE for years due to the high complexity and vast variety of models. The tools of this methodology have significantly shortened the product launch times of new models. Car manufacturers can develop various models and equipment variants based on common core components. This enables them to react quickly to new customer preferences and adapt their models easily to different markets. This competence is becoming even more important due to the increasing proportion of software in automobiles, which will continue to rise with the further development of electric cars and the introduction of autonomous driving. For industry experts, the so-called Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) is already a reality.

Manufacturers who do not yet use Product Line Engineering in the automotive industry typically work according to a model-based development process. This process is based on the development of individual models or equipment variants. The development of each model takes place independently of the other models. This leads to high complexity and inefficiency in the development process.

Use in aerospace industry

Even in the aerospace industry, PLE has a high standing, along with other development methods such as Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). No surprise, as there are few products more complex than an airplane. For example, a modern twin-jet aircraft like the Airbus A350 consists of around three million individual parts.

Airbus' modular system of product families allows many systems and components to be used across models. In the development of the cabin systems product line, Airbus uses a PLE software, in this case from Pure-Systems in Magdeburg. This enables a holistic management of the various cabin variants. In this way, the aircraft manufacturer can respond very flexibly and quickly to the wishes of different airlines, without losing sight of the extremely high safety requirements in aviation.

Specialists like pure-systems play an important role in quality assurance with their offerings. They provide various tools and methods for checking and improving software quality, including automated tests, code analysis, and continuous integration. This ensures that the developed software meets the highest standards.

Reducing complexity

The rapid technological progress poses great challenges for companies today, as customers expect quick availability in new products such as cars, household appliances or in the entertainment sector. The associated challenges for companies were already described by Geoffrey Moore in 1991. Product Line Engineering can help companies to quickly incorporate new technologies into salable products. At the same time, PLE reduces complexity through a modular approach, reduces development costs, and improves quality.