Complexity in Product Development

产品开发的复杂性

• 批准号: 170455-2013
• 负责人: Thomson, Vincent
• 金额: $ 1.89万
• 依托单位: McGill University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=569583
• 关键词: Complexity; Product; Development

Companies are faced with rising product and process complexity when they increase product diversity, introduce new technology, or establish partnerships for development in order to be more competitive. Complexity, if not well managed, is a drag on new product development (NPD) performance and can lead to project failure. Although companies strive to improve productivity, increasing complexity is rarely taken into account in productivity management. Complexity arises from numerous elements and their multitude of relationships, such as between the components of the product being developed, between the activities to develop them, and among the partners and people doing the activities. The research goal is to investigate how product complexity affects new product development. It will consider the interdependence of product elements and NPD process tasks, and it will focus on modelling the explicit exchange of information (knowledge). The research will investigate how product change influences NPD process to better handle increases in complexity as well as new organizational structures that are used to manage the added complexity. It is important to understand the tipping points where an increase in complexity is great enough to cause changes in NPD processes and then organizational structures. Metrics will also be developed to measure complexity in products and processes to get insight into what drives complexity. Computer models and simulations of a typical project work breakdown structure (WBS) used in aerospace development will be created to learn the impact of increasing product complexity on NPD processes and the effects of mitigating coordination mechanisms. These models will show the relationship between product knowledge and its effect on NPD process and organizational structure. Data will be obtained from aerospace companies to build models. Metrics and models will be validated by investigation of NPD processes in the aerospace companies. It is anticipated that there should be an excellent reception to research results, which will mean better design of NPD processes and management of projects with ensuing productivity increases.

当公司增加产品多样性、引入新技术或建立开发合作伙伴关系以提高竞争力时，他们面临着不断增加的产品和流程复杂性。如果管理不当，复杂性会拖累新产品开发 (NPD) 绩效，并可能导致项目失败。尽管公司努力提高生产力，但在生产力管理中却很少考虑到日益增加的复杂性。复杂性源于众多元素及其众多关系，例如正在开发的产品的组件之间、开发它们的活动之间以及进行活动的合作伙伴和人员之间。 研究目标是调查产品复杂性如何影响新产品开发。它将考虑产品元素和 NPD 流程任务的相互依赖性，并将重点关注对信息（知识）的显式交换进行建模。该研究将调查产品变更如何影响 NPD 流程，以更好地处理复杂性的增加，以及用于管理增加的复杂性的新组织结构。重要的是要了解复杂性的增加足以导致 NPD 流程和组织结构发生变化的临界点。还将开发指标来衡量产品和流程的复杂性，以深入了解复杂性的驱动因素。 将创建航空航天开发中使用的典型项目工作分解结构 (WBS) 的计算机模型和模拟，以了解产品复杂性增加对 NPD 流程的影响以及缓解协调机制的影响。这些模型将显示产品知识之间的关系及其对 NPD 流程和组织结构的影响。将从航空航天公司获取数据来构建模型。指标和模型将通过对航空航天公司的 NPD 流程进行调查来验证。预计研究成果应该会得到很好的接受，这将意味着更好的 NPD 流程设计和项目管理，从而提高生产率。