System development & validation process for emerging growing organizations

Abstract

This thesis has the main purpose of presenting the Development and Validation phase of the product development system from the point of view of an emerging and growing product development organization, denoting the obstacles and challenges presented over the operation path or testing organizations as the evolve with solution alternatives from the industry and academia. Through the study and analysis of a multinational company of the automotive industry, it was possible to build a framework of study among regions analyzing the test and development operation of engineering organizations at four levels of growth and responsibility. By combining experience and knowledge from leaders and heroes from these regions, with the knowledge and insights from academia and literature; this study is intended to serve as a guide for a testing organization facing the challenge of growing and acquiring greater responsibility. Today's global scenario demand excellence in execution, reducing time and resources in the development of products, being test and development the most resource consuming activities within a generic product development process but at the same time critical and unavoidable. Through a systems engineering approach, the main challenges and improvement opportunities for the development and validation entities at the Ford of Mexico Product Development Organization are documented, with the purpose of creating awareness and proposing the elements fixing a path that would ensure the success for the company as a whole. This path sets the steps for further work in the deployment of a well defined and lean testing system.