Dynamic Product Development : eine neue Methode zur Repräsentation und Analyse dynamischer Produktentwicklungsprozesse

Abstract

The product development process (PDP) plays a substantial role during product life cycle from the initial idea to the market implementation. The product decisions made in this phase affect considerably the entire life cycle, although their actual effects can be recognized only later. This responsibility of product development underlines the urgent requirement according to new models and analysis methods for systematic planning and optimization of the product development process. In recent years outstanding approaches for integration of DPD and all its associated functions have been developed. However, in most cases they only describe qualitative dependencies and task sequences. In this work a new quantitative process model for product development is presented, which focuses on the representation of design iterations and their effects on the total PDP. Starting point for the modeling of product development projects is a structured representation of the product development plan. The relations between the individual process steps are represented in design structure matrices and separated into dependent, independent and interdependent processes. By introduction of activity durations and transition probabilities for each process step and by application of the z-transform a quantitative model for coupled processes is created. This model is called Dynamic Product Development because it allows dynamic coupling of all product development functions. The resulting model is examined by analysis methods of discrete dynamic systems for its timing behavior. Probability distribution, expected value and variance of the lead time as well as sensitivities concerning individual development steps are determined. On the basis of a state space representation further participation factors and dominant modes are determined.