Automated Driving - Challenges for the Automotive Industry in Product Development with Focus on Process Models and Organizational Structure

The vision of automated driving receives high attention in the automotive industry and academia. This study illustrates the challenges of designing functions of automated driving. Especially the impacts on process models used in the development as well as on the organizational structure and collaboration of car manufacturers and suppliers are considered. This explorative study is based on interviews with experts working at all five German high-volume automotive OEMs as well as at six leading Tier-1 suppliers. Today, most development processes follow the V-model. This leads to challenges in the development process as the V-model requires a full specification at the beginning of a project. However, a full specification of requirements is difficult in the context of automated driving due to high complexity and uncertainty. Current organizational structures are often segmented by components. Challenges in collaboration between the development areas are the consequence, since the development of highly automated driving involves strong cross-functional dependencies. This study provides a holistic overview and a first step towards a more inclusive empirical research agenda for the future. The paper discusses the empirical findings in the context of current research results and intends to stimulate managerial and academic interest in alternative development approaches and organizational structures as well as future empirical research which builds on these qualitative findings.