Complexity Management Approach for Resource Planning in Variant-rich Product Development

Recently, companies in many industrial branches are confronted with increasing dynamics in innovation and technology and customer requirements for individualized products. Especially automotive companies can not escape these trends. To satisfy these trends, companies extend their product portfolio by developing new product variants, leading to increased complexity and use of required resources. Complexity management and resource planning in product development are strategic issues for companies to be competitive. A systematic literature review identifies existing approaches for complexity management in all fields. These are analyzed and evaluated according to their applicability for resource planning. A new complexity management approach for resource planning in variant‐rich product development is developed, containing a systematical analysis and evaluation of complexity to create conditions for a target oriented resource planning in product development. It encourages the reader to calculate the amount of required resources over time in an early stage of a development process regarding product development complexity.