Dependencies as a barrier for continuous innovation in cyber-physical systems

In the automotive domain, as an example of cyber-physical systems, continuous software deployment is actively explored to deliver increasingly capable features to existing fleets of vehicles. The distributed nature of software coupled with tight hardware integration and potentially tremendous variability between vehicles make ensuring compatibility of updated software a significant challenge - both technically and managerially. While the automotive industry commonly forms larger multi-brand organisations to utilise economies of scale, processes for continuous deployment contradictory assumes a single organisation with full control. This paper sets out to shed light on challenges of adopting continuous deployment in the context of such a multi-brand cyber-physical systems organisation. Following a case study, the paper describes a tension between the managerial perspective concerned with platform strategies, and the engineering perspective responsible for developing products from those platforms. The paper highlights software dependencies as a barrier to continuous innovation of cyber-physical systems in multi-brand organisations.