Integration of the Scrum methodology in mechatronic product development

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate if it would be possible for a mechatronic product development team to use Scrum, an Agile Development framework with both, the students of UVIC-UCC and the company ITQ GmbH, behind the student project called Mi5. The Agile philosophy and methods have revolutionized the software development industry in the last decade, and therefore it was of interest to see if this new way of working would be applicable in other disciplines. Thus, the study focuses on if Scrum can be applied in mechatronic product development, and if it needs any adaptations. Two case studies of agile methods used in mechanics, electronics and software development are presented. The primary case study follows a mechatronic product development team through their 5-month experiment of using Scrum. In this context a five-member team in question co-operates to develop an intelligent prototype for packaging food products in a production line. The methods used in order to form the case studies were observations, interviews, documentary analysis and informal conversations. The results indicate that it is possible for a mechatronic development team to use the Scrum framework, with some adaptions of the framework. The team in the case study made use of all main aspects of the framework, but the deviations were not a working product or product increment is not produced every iteration and not all the members finish until the end of the project. The results also indicate that using the framework improved the team’s work and progress, and the team decided to continue using the framework after the experiment. The conclusion is that Scrum can be used in a mechatronic environment, by mechatronic development teams. Some adaptations might be needed, depending on each case, but this is also recommended in the literature to software development teams.