This study investigates product development of complex products in a modular environment at the paver manufacturer Dynapac. It is determined how the complexity of a modular product constrains product development.Product development in a modular enviornment is a popular research topic in previous literature. However there is limited literature regarding in what ways the complexity of a modular product constrains product development in form of new product variants demanded by the market. A more comprehensive research within this field is interesting for manufacturing companies producing complex products in a modular environment since it could ease and optimize their product development processes. An efficient product development process is crucial to stay competitive and to be able to serve the market rapidly with qualitative and desired products, which increases the importance of this study.With the aim to address the limitations of the existing literature on product development based from modular complex product systems a case study was conducted. The constraints of developing a new paver model demanded by the market caused by the complexity of the paver design were identified.The findings of the research have both theoretical and managerial implications. The theoretical contribution consists mainly of the identification of a new type of overall constraints in modular complex product systems which I call ‖architectural functional constraints‖. These constraints cause an unexpected chain reaction of affected modules in the product system when a change to one module is made, even if the change ostensibly only should affect the module in question. The results show that the effects of this type of constraints is a constraining factor on product development of new product variants in a modular environment. The effects of the architectural functional constraints constrain product development since they trigger time consuming activities in order to avoid a dysfunctional product, or a product that has a high level of commonality with other product offerings. Further the effects oppose a rapid and cost-efficient product development which is regarded to be two of the main benefits with modularity.The managerial implications include a decision process for new product development projects that can be used when architectural functional constraints are found in a product in order to ensure an economic sustainable development of new product variants. Hence managers can use the decision process as a tool to both make and communicate current and future decisions in a structured way.The study is a starting point for further studies investigating how the complexity of modular products might constrain product development efforts. It is expected that the results of the study can be used by other manufacturing companies operating in a similar context, producing complex product systems in a modular environment.

Increased use of data is influencing the existing practices in the engineering domain,including that of systems engineering. Complex products and systems (CoPS), along with its predominant methodology of development, Model-based systems engineering(MBSE), is no exception to this. This thesis explores the possible integration of the emerging data driven methods and the established model-based methods in the context of CoPS development. It also explores what the implications of such an integration could be for the organizations building such systems, the system integrators. To analyse the current state of the art in CoPS development and model based methods as well as the emerging trends in data driven methods, this research employs an integrative literature review method. The literature search concluded in 71 selected articles to be reviewed. These articles where divided over three main categories, CoPS, Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) and data driven methods.The results of the analysis suggest that data driven methods and the model-based methods complement rather than compete throughout the innovation life cycle of CoPS. The findings indicate that an integration of the methods is beneficial to the architectural, systemic, and component level innovation in CoPS. MBSE and data driven methods could however have different levels of influence in these three types of innovation. The findings indicate that MBSE could have more influence in architectural innovations, while data driven methods could be more influential in systemic and component innovation. The continuous innovation in the use phase of system is also seen to be improved by this integration. The system integrators benefit from the improved project to project learning resulting from the integration which enhances their economy of repetition. An integrated method could also increase the speed of which decisions can be made while still maintaining reliability in the system. The results indicate that the number of iterations could increase due to the increased feedback of data and the learnings gained from it, which could pose some challenge to the existing project management methods. Further research is needed to find out what are the full benefits of an integrated method and identify other potential conflicts.