Managing complexity in product development

这项研究将使人们能够理解复杂产品开发的各个方面和衡量标准，从而使设计师能够控制复杂性并获得竞争优势。大多数控制产品复杂性的方法主要集中在降低复杂性上。尽管降低复杂性是为了避免不必要的复杂性，但降低复杂性可能会降低竞争力，因为它通常与客户要求的属性直接相关。因此，拥抱复杂性并掌握它，以便从竞争优势中获益是可取的。随着产品种类的增加，产品开发的复杂性不断增加，过程步骤变得更加紧密地相互联系。例如，在设计复杂的机电一体化系统时，工程师必须处理多学科的部件，但没有综合的工程学科来处理这一问题。由于这些障碍，复杂的产品行为变得不可预测。当今汽车行业的质量问题和召回事件就是一个明显的例子。2010年3月20日，《环球邮报》发表了一篇关于这一点的文章：《复杂性将摧毁我们所有人》。因此，控制和处理产品开发中的复杂性成为一个重要的问题。

This research will enable the understanding of the various aspects and metrics of complex product development that allow the designer to control the complexity and achieve competitive advantage. Most approaches for controlling product complexity focus primarily on its reduction. Although it serves a good purpose to avoid unnecessary complexity, complexity reduction may decrease competitiveness, as it is often directly related to attributes demanded by the customer. It is therefore desirable to embrace complexity and master it in order to reap the benefits of a competitive advantage. As product variety increases, complexity in product development is continuously increasing and process steps become more intensely interconnected. In designing complex mechatronics systems for instance, the engineer has to deal with multidisciplinary components, but there is no integrative engineering discipline to deal with that. Due to these obstacles, complex product behaviour becomes unpredictable. The quality problems and recalls in today's car industry give a striking example. An article was published about this in The Globe and Mail on 20 March 2010: "Complexity will destroy us all". Consequently, controlling and handling complexity in product development has become an important issue.