The Digital Battle — Agile Hardware Development

There has been an incredible revolution in the software world around agile, but have those agile methodologies been taken on by the hardware people yet? And should they be taken on at all, or is it all just hype around something that isn’t really possible? On this episode, Thom Singer and Craig Brown are joined by Digital Enterprise Society Trustee, Mark Pendergast for the latest digital battle, this time taking a dive into the details of and need for agile hardware development, what role it fills, and whether it will ever catch up to agile software development — and whether it needs to at all.    On today’s podcast, you will learn: Defining agile hardware development  The definition could be Introducing fast, iterative cycles with the customer involved.  This happens often for software, but rarely for hardware.  Is there any difference between this and the expensive and endless prototype cycle? Moving material is a costly aspect of any hardware development.    Advantages and disadvantages of agile hardware development  Prototype cycles evolved into broken and purposeless over time.  Agile has the ability to keep hardware development on track.  The vast team required to get hardware prototypes ready is much harder to scale than with software.  Agile is designed for small teams, which doesn’t work well with hardware.  There is a greater sense of urgency with hardware that should also be applied to software.  Early simulations done on computers have the potential to have a much quicker turnaround time.  Constraints drive agile hardware development because they are cost effective.    Steps to improving agile hardware development Decide that you want to be there and are committed to developing the tools and simulations to get there.  Get the unknowns off the table and stay within the constraints.  Build the minimum to test the unknown and then move on.  Employ additive manufacturing to create prototypes that increase insights.    Does agile hardware development solve a real problem? Time to market decreases dramatically with the use of agile hardware.  People that are working in silos have got to wake up, get out and start figuring things out.  The end to end process has not been entirely worked out yet, but pieces of it are slowly  emerging.  Architecture plays a critical role in making these products work.    Continue the conversation with us within the Digital Enterprise Society Community at www.DigitalEnterpriseSociety.org.