Managing complexity in product development

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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. Both industry and scientific research require methods to support the management of complex engineering development processes in a way that recognises and exploits the positive characteristics of their complexity, while mitigating against undesired and/or unpredictable behaviour. This research addresses this need through the development of a systematic and rigorous approach to modelling and analysing complex product development processes, particularly due to multidisciplinary complexity. The aim is to provide methods to deal with the unpredicted problems resulting from the destructive coupling that may exist in products design. This project is expected to the train at least four (4) Master 's and three (3) Doctoral students that are able to manage technical and organizational complexity and contribute to Canada's economy and competitiveness.