Abstract
Keywords - Economic Success Determinants, Complexity Control, Fractal Specification,
Simplification Rules, Adaptive Light System
Abstract - From the three success determinants time, cost, and quality, the first one mentioned is the central leverage for economic success in product development. The importance of the time factor is also valid in terms of proactive complexity control - early decision making faces the product complexity at the source of emergence. Only in an early stage complexity can be shaped.
In order to bring early decision making into product development, simplification rules are very suited. They do not just represent a management slogan, but bring in concrete, directly executable, and controllable action directives into everydays product development. In the special case of product specification, the spontaneous compliance of the simplification rules leads to a self-similar and consequently fractal product specification.
Empirical results in DaimlerChryslers Commercial Vehicle Division proved the economic advantage of the simplification rules. The example of the product specification of an adaptive light system shows very considerably the effects of early decision making in a fractal specification process. In summary it can be said that complex automotive technologies of the future can optimised indirectly in terms of economic success with the compliance of the simplification rules.