With the application of software-defined product development model, the whole product development model will be transformed and upgraded, and the agile product development method integrating software and hardware will become the key.

In the traditional product development model, software and hardware are intricately linked. In order to ensure the perfect integration between software and hardware, in addition to frequent PIB101C communication and collaboration with hardware developers during the development process, developers also need to conduct a large number of functional tests and integration tests through physical prototypes to ensure that the interaction logic between terminals, device drivers and applications can operate as expected. In the software-defined product development mode, software and hardware are fully decoupled, and the software and hardware use common and standard communication and control protocols to interact, and the software begins to transform into a service-oriented and platform-based development architecture. In order to improve the efficiency of software development operation and maintenance cooperation, shorten the software development cycle, and improve the software quality, manufacturers began to introduce agile development and continuous integration deployment methods based on DevOps in the software development process. The Agile Release Train, developed by the SAFe(Scaled Agile Framework) Agile development methodology, brings together development teams to release products or services at fixed intervals, usually weeks or months. This helps strengthen collaboration between different development teams for products to respond quickly to changing market demands and stay ahead of the competition.

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The application of agile development frameworks in product development needs to be considered from a product perspective, in addition to software engineering fields, hardware and mechanical engineering fields need to be considered. Compared with hardware, the research and development of software is the production process, without a series of activities such as subsequent production and manufacturing supply chain, but with continuous operation and iteration. However, in the field of hardware and mechanical engineering, due to its complex development process, excessive business links, long development cycle, matrix development organization structure and other factors, agile methods have been difficult to be applied on a large scale. Today, with the rapid development and mature application of digital technologies, agile product development has once again become the focus of industry leaders. Many enterprises begin to build a product-oriented BizDevOps methodology system, and take the software and hardware integrated agile product development method as an important part of the enterprise digital strategy.

PIB101C As early as 2018, BMW initiated the transition to agile product development with the introduction of BizDevOps methodology in the vehicle development process, that is, through the close collaboration of business, development and operations teams, product – and specialization-oriented, to build a continuous and consistent flow of engineering data, accelerate and optimize the product development and delivery process. Achieve end-to-end continuous integration, development and deployment operations, and real-time, 360º transparent visualization of the whole process.

Daimler also proposed a software-driven agile product development strategy in 2020, creating an agile collaborative process system and product development organization structure by building multi-specialty, full-life digital product prototypes. In the digital prototype + digital twin environment, the virtual simulation and verification process of multiple professional levels such as system/subsystem and mechanical and electrical software can be completed by agile iteration, replacing 90% of the physical prototype functions, thus greatly improving the efficiency of multi-professional and upstream and downstream cooperation, reducing the time to market of the first car by 12 months, and reaching the deliverable state when the first car comes off the assembly line.