Product Development: Tools and Techniques for Improving Performance

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Canadian organizations face unprecedented challenges due to intensified global competition and the advent of Industry 4.0. In order to adapt to the new competitive landscape, organizations must be fluid in structure and adopt flexible processes that can rapidly develop high-quality products more efficiently than ever before. Industry 4.0, or the fourth industrial revolution, is the digitization of not only manufacturing, but the enterprise as a whole, and holds the promise of increased efficiency and productivity, and optimized product development, among others. Traditional organizational models will need to be deconstructed and reinvented due to the rise of digital technology, and this will have an impact on corresponding processes, such as product development (PD), which plays a critical role in organizational profitability, prosperity and competitiveness. Product development consists of the set of activities, including concept development, system level design, detail design, testing and refinement, required to convert an idea into a marketable product, where a product can be a good or service. Given the strong relation of PD performance and organizational structure understanding how organizational structure evolves in order to respond to process variation becomes crucial. Furthermore, the application of lean to PD has been notable in the last decade, however, companies have been struggling with sustaining success from lean efforts. In the proposed research program, organizational structure will be studied in terms of its relation to the PD process, which, in turn, is organized in terms of its basic elements: a) people, b) process, and c) tools and technology. Successful PD highly depends on the effective design, integration and coordination of these three interrelated elements. Underlying this is the need for d) performance measurement. The overarching goal of this research is to develop tools and techniques for successful and sustainable lean PD, enabled by the appropriate organizational structure. In Canada, the aerospace and healthcare industries stand to benefit greatly from lean implementation. The dynamics of the aerospace industry have improved recently due to low interest rates, reduced costs due to lower crude oil prices, and increased demand. Managing the surge in demand is the challenge, and high budget and time overruns must be avoided. Hospitals are also facing a critical issue of surging patient demands, decreased patient satisfaction, rising expenses and frequent medical errors, all of which stimulated a reform of hospital systems by healthcare leaders and policy makers. Both industries have turned to lean principles in part to address these issues. This grant would have far-reaching implications for the competitiveness of the aerospace industry in Canada, and will also allow healthcare organizations to deliver more value towards patient care.