Organizing the fragmented landscape of multidisciplinary product development: A mapping of approaches, processes, methods and tools from the scientific literature - Searchable cartographies

This document gathers cartographies for the development of mechatronic products, cyber-physical systems and smart products. The three cartographies presented are associated with an open-access article – see the citation box below – and differ from the ones provided in the article in that they are searchable, which makes it easier to pinpoint references, concepts and techniques. This document comprises a legend, the cartographies and a list of associated references. 

To contextualize the cartographies, the integration of digital and connectivity technologies in new products can invite companies to adapt their development. Organizing the fragmented landscape of multidisciplinary product development to help companies navigate the dense scientific literature corpus is a first step in supporting them in doing so. Multidisciplinary product development can be investigated by analyzing specific types of products that deal with both software and hardware development and can be referred to as cyber-physical systems, mechatronics, and smart products and systems in the literature. To support their development, 236 “concepts and techniques” (an expression that encompasses approaches, processes, methods and tools) were identified from 167 scientific papers through an extensive literature review and organized based on a four-level model paired with a decision tree. The mapping of the sorted concepts and techniques made it possible to generate graphical representations called “cartographies.” These cartographies represent a database of concepts and techniques for multidisciplinary product development and serve to support companies in their transformation from the product development perspective by providing them with a general overview of the related literature.