Mechatronics: From systems combination to business integration

The mechatronics approach has been around for decades, but many companies still struggle realising the business potential inherent in successful combination, or even integration of enabling technologies in systems for mechanical, computing, metrology, and control topics. And the challenges are not only linked to combining systems, but also to realise them as products and create business value doing it. This paper takes an investigative stance and study a systems and product development process, asking what enablers and barriers it encompasses for realising an integrated mechatronics business, drawing on business model and mechatronic theoretical approaches. The case is development of wind turbines and their control systems. The SME, with long term experience of control systems for one turbine manufacturer, was approached by another with rather different ideas for the combined product, the wind turbine. Through an ethnographic study the collaboration process in the multinational project organisation was followed. The study shows how several types of engineering, sales, managerial and manufacturing concerns are woven together, but also disrupted over time. The transformation of a sales oriented (product) specification into technical specification proves problematic, issues of protection of company critical competences occurs, as well as technical and business integration issues on mechatronics engineering.