Conceptualizing Technological platform development capability in the Iranian Automotive Industry: A multiple case studies

Many automotive firms around the world are turning to platform-based product development to respond to a wider range of customers and reduce costs concurrently, in other words, for mass customization. In the process of adopting such an approach, conceptualizing and identifying platform development capabilities is a crucial principle. So the main objective of this research is to conceptualize the product platform development capabilities by identifying the core module development capabilities and their integration capabilities in the automotive industry. In terms of purpose this research is an applied study and in terms of data type, it is a qualitative and exploratory case study research.The statistical population of this study was the Iranian automotive industry and the respondent community of experts from Iran Khodro and Saipa as well as academic specialists at the Automotive Engineering Faculty of Science and Technology University. The sampling was done in a purposive and judgmental manner with theoretical saturation. Content analysis was used to analyze the interviews and documents. Basic technical knowledge capability, needs and requirements engineering capability, system design and architecture capability, subsystem engineering capability and component development, system integration capability, and test and validation capability as core module development capability And organizational integration capability, supply chain integration capability, and technical integration capability were identified as integration capabilities. Finally, fuzzy Delphi technique was used to increase the validity of the identified Themes.