The automotive industry, as one of the key technical innovators, has also been afflicted with the high innovation speed. Inferior vehicle quality, dissatisfied customers as well as high warranty cost have been the result. The high error-rate more often than not results from the increasing complexity of the vehicle electronics and the software controlling it.
Today's electronics and diagnostic development processes - established mostly in an ad-hoc manner - are insufficient to deal with these problems. An IT-infrastructure dominated by singular solutions, which are not integrated into the process, complete a situation which is dominated by the individual engineer's skills and performance, even for routine tasks.
This paper shows ways out of the process crisis. A suggested integrated diagnostic process, in addition to an IT-infrastructure based on emerging standards like ODX (Open Diagnostic data eXchange) is a solid foundation for future vehicle and diagnosis quality improvement.