Decision Making for Managing Automotive Platforms: An Interview Survey on the State-of-Practice

The automotive industry is changing due to digitization, a growing focus on software, and the increasing use of electronic control units. Consequently, automotive engineering is shifting from hardware-focused towards software-focused platform concepts to address these challenges. This shift includes adopting and integrating methods like electrics/electronics platforms, software product-line engineering, and product generation. Although these concepts are well-known in their respective research fields and different industries, there is limited research on their practical effectiveness and issues—particularly when implementing and using these concepts for modern automotive platforms. The lack of research and practical experiences challenges particularly decision makers, who cannot build on reliable evidence or techniques. In this paper, we address this gap by reporting on the state-of-practice of supporting the decision making for managing automotive electrics/electronics platforms, which integrate hardware, software, and electrics/electronics artifacts. For this purpose, we conducted 26 interviews with experts from the automotive domain. We derived questions from a previous mapping study in which we collected current research on product-structuring concepts, aiming to derive insights on the consequent practical challenges and requirements. Specifically, we contribute an overview of the requirements and criteria for (re)designing the decision-making process for managing electrics/electronics platforms within the automotive domain from the practitioners’ view. Through this, we aim to assist practitioners in managing electrics/electronics platforms, while also providing starting points for future research on a real-world problem.