Improving the Timeliness of Product Development Processes

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。这些改进提高了小团队的生产力，因为他们使用相同的设计工具，快速沟通并快速解决问题，也就是说，协调很容易。然而，许多人和合作伙伴合作的大型工程仍然存在问题。问题不在于在一个复杂的项目中工作量持续增加，而在于时间紧迫，而任务却没有及时交付。研究人员已经表明，丰田和其他公司在新产品开发方面的优势所获得的竞争优势主要来自于开发团队之间更好的协调。******提出的研究计划的长期目标是确定哪种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花在增值活动上的时间不到一半。本研究将发展协调理论、新产品开发过程模型和基于agent的仿真来研究新产品开发过程的时效性。******目前的协调理论只是用成本来量化协调，即通信网络的成本+信息交换+网络的有效性，其中协调就是对依赖关系的管理。本研究将发展一种理论，从时间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+新产品开发过程的响应时间。此外，多范式建模（基于智能体+离散事件）将用于研究协调机制和组织结构的特征，以提高新产品开发过程中的及时绩效。新产品开发过程模型将考虑合作伙伴之间活动的时间、信息交换的速度、资源结构和支持技术的使用。新产品开发过程的数据将从公司获得，以建立模型并验证结果。该研究还将研究敏捷方法（频繁的信息交换以及频繁的交付），以确定哪些特性使这些技术能够成功地按时交付产品。******研究的结果将是协调理论，可以衡量基于时间的新产品开发过程的结果，以及协调机制和组织结构，可以改善新产品开发过程，以及时交付结果。总体而言，人们将更好地理解信息交换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。对工业的好处将是帮助他们按时交付产品的简单方法。**

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. **