Improving the Timeliness of Product Development Processes

提高产品开发流程的及时性

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-04437
• 负责人: Thomson, Vincent
• 金额: $ 2.26万
• 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: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=760298
• 关键词: Improving; Timeliness; Product; Development; Processes

New product development (NPD) has been greatly improved through the use of better information tools and better methods, such as concurrent engineering and systems thinking. These improvements have increased productivity for small teams, since they use the same design tools, communicate quickly and resolve issues fast, i.e., coordination is easy. However, engineering-in-the-large, where many people and partners collaborate, is still problematic. The issue is not that effort continues to increase during a complex project, but that the clock is running while tasks are not delivered in a timely manner. Researchers have shown that the competitive advantage that Toyota and others have gained by their superiority in NPD mostly comes from better coordination among development groups. The long term goal of the proposed research program is to determine which coordination mechanisms and organizational structures can deliver products faster by focusing on the timely completion of design tasks, especially in multi-partner projects. Studies have shown that designers in aerospace and defence projects spend less than half of their time on value-added activities. The research will develop coordination theory, NPD process models and agent based simulation for the study of timeliness in NPD processes. Present coordination theory only quantifies coordination in terms of cost, i.e., the cost of the communication network + information exchange + network effectiveness, where coordination is the management of dependencies. The proposed research will develop a theory to measure the benefits of coordination in terms of time: timeliness of the structure supporting communication + time for communication + response time of the NPD process. In addition, multi-paradigm modelling (agent based + discrete event) will be used to study the characteristics of coordination mechanisms and organizational structures that improve timely performance in NPD processes. The NPD process model will consider the timing of activities among partners, the rate of information exchange, the structure of resources, and the use of support technologies. Data for NPD processes will be obtained from companies to build models and validate results. The research will also study agile methods (frequent information exchange along with frequent deliverables) to determine what features allow these techniques to be successful in delivering products on time. The outcomes of the research will be coordination theory that can measure NPD process outcomes based on time as well as coordination mechanisms and organizational structures that can improve the NPD process to deliver outcomes in a timely manner. Overall, there will be a better understanding of how information exchange as well as the design of NPD processes and organizational structures lead to better project delivery. Benefits to industry will be simple methods that help them deliver products on time.

通过使用更好的信息工具和更好的方法，如并行工程和系统思维，新产品开发(NPD)得到了极大的改善。这些改进提高了小型团队的生产率，因为他们使用相同的设计工具，快速沟通，快速解决问题，即协调很容易。然而，在许多人和合作伙伴合作的情况下，整体工程仍然存在问题。问题不是在一个复杂的项目期间继续增加工作，而是时钟在运行，而任务没有及时交付。研究人员表明，丰田和其他公司通过在新产品开发方面的优势而获得的竞争优势，主要来自于开发团队之间更好的协调。拟议研究计划的长期目标是确定哪些协调机制和组织结构可以通过专注于及时完成设计任务来更快地交付产品，特别是在多合作伙伴项目中。研究表明，航空航天和国防项目的设计师将不到一半的时间花在增值活动上。这项研究将发展协调理论、新产品开发过程模型和基于主体的模拟来研究新产品开发过程中的及时性。目前的协调理论只从成本的角度来量化协调，即通信网络+信息交换+网络有效性的成本，其中协调是对依赖关系的管理。拟议的研究将发展一种理论，从时间的角度衡量协调的好处：支持沟通的结构的及时性+沟通的时间+新产品开发过程的反应时间。此外，还将使用多范例建模(基于代理+离散事件)来研究在新产品开发过程中提高及时绩效的协调机制和组织结构的特点。新产品开发流程模型将考虑合作伙伴之间的活动时间安排、信息交流的速度、资源结构和支持技术的使用。将从公司获得新产品开发过程的数据，以建立模型和验证结果。这项研究还将研究敏捷方法(频繁的信息交换和频繁的交付)，以确定哪些功能使这些技术能够成功地按时交付产品。研究的成果将是能够根据时间衡量新产品开发过程成果的协调理论，以及能够改进新产品开发过程以及时交付成果的协调机制和组织结构。总体而言，将更好地理解信息交流以及新产品开发流程和组织结构的设计如何导致更好的项目交付。对行业的好处将是帮助他们按时交付产品的简单方法。