The context of product development can be understood as transformation of needs into technical solutions under the continuous handling of uncertainties. These result particularly in early development phases from a lack of technical knowledge. In order to counter the uncertainties, companies are increasingly implementing agile approaches, which mostly originate in the area of software development. Although these are suitable for flexible handling of project management activities and lead to an increased reactivity of the development team, they do not address the early and continuous integration of technical knowledge into the process. With the aim of optimizing mechatronic systems with regard to their lightweight design potentials, in this article a method is developed that supports agile development with the goal of lightweight design. Therefore, it combines a method for functional modelling with a function-based lightweight design method. The targeted integration of technical knowledge has shown that lightweight design potentials can be optimized iteratively in agile approaches. As an initial validation, the applicability of the method was demonstrated in a development project.

The development of mechatronic systems has always been characterized by continuous handling of uncertainties. This challenge, which is associated with dynamic changes in the development context, is increasingly met by companies in the development of physical systems with the implementation of agile approaches in their development processes. However, since established approaches have their origin in software development, they reach various limits in the context of the development of mechatronic systems, e.g. due to the physical properties of the systems. Other features, such as transparent and flexible project management or targeted and early involvement of customers and users in development processes, can also be implemented in mechatronic system development. In order to derive the potentials and limits of existing agile approaches for the context of mechatronic system development, the present paper compares existing approaches with regard to relevant factors from the context of mechatronic system development. The aim is to create a basis for the targeted development, adaptation and use of agile approaches in the field of mechatronic system development.