CHANGED BASIC CONDITIONS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE

INDUSTRY
After years of rising profits, companies in the automotive
industry are currently confronted with stagnant or even
diminishing markets [1]. Due to the resulting intensified
competition for key market shares, car manufacturers are
engaged in an innovation race characterized by a soaring
number of product variants with numerous product
derivates. Furthermore, the innovation and model cycles
are constantly decreasing. For example, in 1980 the
model cycle in the automotive industry averaged out at
10.6 years; today the time period from one model change
to the next amounts to approximately 6 years with a falling
tendency for the future [2]. These conditions lead to a
higher complexity in the production engineering process,
thus resulting commensurately in more complex and
highly automated manufacturing systems. This increasing
complexity is also related to the rising deployment and the
linking of electronics and software in the form of mechatronic
plant components [3]. Nowadays, control software
engineering is responsible for over half of the functionality
of mechatronic manufacturing systems [4]. Yet, today
control software engineering still tends to be the last step
within the mechanic-oriented and sequential engineering
process [5].

Based on the changed basic conditions set out above and

the resulting challenges, the body shop of the automotive
industry with its different kinds of data structures will be
illustrated in the following. Within the scope of the third
chapter a new methodology in the form of an integrated,
mechatronic-oriented process solution will be presented.
In this context, a cross-domain planning and data integration
platform represented by a mechatronic plant model is
introduced. Using this 3D-oriented data model, real PLC
programs can be validated at a very early stage. Furthermore,
the profitable use of this integrated plant model in
the real production world as well as the organizational
effects of this new, integrated methodology will be pointed
out.