Rethinking the platform approach in automotive industry

Paper in proceeding, 2009

In many industrial areas, such as in automotive industry, the development of joint technology platforms is seen as an enabler for improving efficiency, facilitating frequent and rapid new product and technology introductions, as well as transfer of production between units. During the present financial recession especially in the automotive industry, it has become obvious that there might be extensive drawbacks from using integrated platforms for several brands if different companies within large industrial groups are extremely integrated in terms of organization, technology, and know-how. In integrated product structures, major product changes, however, become more difficult and more expensive to carry out. If companies have products based on very different technologies, integration is also not easily achieved and it may be almost impossible to merge several brands into one group and one platform. In this paper we identify implications of widely implemented integrated technology platform thinking in automotive industry.