The discussion about increased product complexity in Western European companies
has been omnipresent for decades. This is due to ever new demands (real or con-
ceived) from the market and new possibilities (technical and others) open to the pro-
viders of products and services to come up fast with very specific solutions. The man-
agement of this complexity inside the company so as to achieve a balance between the
market benefits of more customer specific solutions and the internal costs induced by
this is still a big challenge. After years of research in this area there is still a lack of
tools to help practitioners to take decisions about the right degree of complexity for a
product or the right design of a product architecture.

Mr. Marti brings together three perspectives on this topic in an easily understand-
able and communicable way: The strategy of the company (combined with the matur-
ity of the product), the functionality, and the physical complexity on a component
level. The visualization in a complexity matrix is an important new tool especially for
fostering the understanding for complexity issues in a company!
With this book Mr. Marti has come up with an outstanding contribution to product
complexity management, which is crucial for the future competitiveness of companies
in Western Europe. I hope that this book will find a broad distribution as well in prac-
tice as in theory for the sake of our countries!
Prof. Dr. Thomas Friedli