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In the fall of 2005, the Automotive Industry established the SAE J2746 Software Assessment Repository (SAR) Task Force with the purpose of achieving significant improvements in software quality and reductions in cost throughout the automotive supply chain. The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and International Standards Organization (ISO) have developed specific guidelines for software development processes that have been embraced throughout the supply chain in the manufacturing of products used in automotive applications. These requirements are published internationally as ISO 15504-series (i.e., SPICE [1] and AutoSPICE [2]), and CMMI v1.x by SEI [3] in the USA. An initiative of the SAE J2746 Task Force was to develop a global scheme for the use of assessment results performed by registrars, based on the CMMI/SPICE standards.

Rising costs continue to be a problem within the automotive industry. One way to address these rising costs is through modularity. Modular systems provide the ability to achieve product variety through the combination and standardization of components. Modular design approaches used in development of vehicle electrical, electronic, and software (EES) systems allow sharing of architectures/modules between different product lines (vehicles). This modular design approach may provide economies of scale, reduced development time, reduced order lead-time, easier product diagnostics, maintenance and repair. Other benefits of this design approach include development of a variety of EES systems through component swapping and component sharing. In this paper, new optimization algorithms and software tools are presented that allow vehicle EES system design engineers to develop modular architectures/modules that can be shared across vehicle platforms (for OEMs) and across OEMs (for suppliers).

Modular systems provide the ability to achieve product variety through the combination and standardization of components. The trend within the automotive industry is towards modular systems. The automotive manufacturers separate the vehicle into modular systems (chunks), which may be built and tested off line before assembled for vehicle installation. In this paper, software that utilizes a new clustering algorithm for development of integrated and modular vehicle architectures is presented. The algorithm and software tool presented in this paper allows the system designer to automate and optimize the vehicle system development process. A vehicle system model that identifies all the functional (data, and control) interfaces between vehicle system functions is the input to the software tool. The software tool is capable of analyzing this input data and determining the vehicle system architecture by optimally grouping (integrating) functions into physical modules.

The rapid growth of electronic feature content within the vehicle continues to challenge the automotive industry. Customers want cutting edge consumer electronics features in a vehicle before the features are obsolete. However, automotive manufacturers continue to struggle with introducing new features into vehicles before they become obsolete to the customer. The ability for automotive manufacturers to seamlessly upgrade existing products with new and improved products continues to plague the automotive industry. Vehicles traditionally take 4 plus years to design and manufacture. Automotive manufacturers need to plan consumer electronics features early, but not actually integrate those into the vehicle until late in the design cycle, possibly on the production line. This would help facilitate providing the most recent features.

The rapid growth of vehicle feature content continues to challenge automotive designers. The total vehicle feature content seriously impacts the manufacturing complexity of any single vehicle. Traditional strategies for introducing new features into high-content luxury vehicles before moving the feature into economy vehicles have been undermined by the fast moving consumer electronics field. The challenge for automotive OEM and Tier 1 suppliers is to optimize the vehicle architecture in order to provide more efficient means of introducing features expediently and efficiently. Therefore, any production vehicle's Electrical, Electronic, & Software (EES) architecture must successfully support modular sourcing, modular assembly, global manufacturing schemes, cost and weight issues.

Consumers always seem to want more features, better reliability, and increased value. Regulations seem to grow ever more detailed and competitors are constantly raising the stakes by implementing new innovations. This coupled with the fact that automotive manufacturers are constantly trying to reduce cost and weight of the vehicle, makes the task of designing a vehicle even more challenging. One of the major contributors to the vehicles cost and weight is the electrical/electronics system. Designing a vehicle's electrical/electronic system is a complex task with many constraints (e.g., cost, timing, manufacturing, assembly, weight, quality, reliability, serviceability, industry standards, brand image, etc). Analyzing and understanding all of these constraints and alternatives is how the vehicle's electrical/electronic system should be designed. In this paper, the constraints that need to be considered when designing a vehicle's electrical/electronic system will be discussed.