Abstract
Preprint of journal article.
Abstract:
Collaborative design of physical products between remote partners poses
unique challenges. This is due to both the complex and interconnected
data required for product design and manufacture, and to the centralised
computing infrastructure traditionally used to manage product lifecycle
data. While modern cloud based solutions to collaborative design are
gaining popularity, they diminish the control of each design partner. In
contrast, software designers readily collaborate on highly complex
software, while retaining direct control of the files they are editing
due to the dominance of distributed version control. This version
control can be coupled with “Developer Operations” or DevOps tools to
automate critical processes and facilitate communication. In this paper
we explore how DevOps workflows can be adapted to the development of
hardware. We include concrete examples of how this can be implemented in
practice from a case study of the OpenFlexure Microscope project. While
much ground remains to be broken in this field, we believe DevOps for
hardware can support a new paradigm of distributed hardware development,
with enormous benefits for both commercial and open-source hardware.