Waterfall and Agile in Industrial Machinery: Developing a B2B Machine-Sharing Platform at SCM Group

This dissertation examines how project management and software development methodologies can be applied and combined within the industrial machinery sector, focusing on the tension between structured, plan-driven delivery and iterative, user-centered development. The first part frames the industrial machinery industry and its ongoing transformation through digitalization, servitization, ecosystem strategies, and emerging B2B applications of sharing economy principles. It then compares Waterfall and Agile approaches, with specific attention to Scrum and Kanban, discussing their strengths, limitations, and typical fit in industrial contexts where reliability, integration constraints, and cross functional coordination are critical. The second part presents a case study developed at SCM Group: AirFurniture, a B2B machine sharing platform for the woodworking domain designed to match demand for manufacturing capacity with supply from carpentries willing to offer available machine time. Within the DTBR team, my internship role as Product Owner Assistant focused on the early phases that make a concept deliverable: stakeholder and needs analysis, risk assessment, user flow definition, backlog structuring in Jira through epics and user stories, and the definition of acceptance criteria supported by visual mockups and prototypes. The case study highlights practical lessons on product ownership in a large industrial organization, where delivery depends on translating complex workflows into incremental, testable steps and aligning technical feasibility with adoption drivers such as usability, trust, and operational credibility. The work suggests that hybrid governance, supported by clear artifacts and disciplined backlog management, is a pragmatic path to deliver digital services in industrial settings.