A Model-Based Framework to Overlap Product Development Activities

Abstract

Intense competition in many industries forces manufacturing firms to develop new, higher quality products at an increasingly rapid pace. Overlapping product development activities is an important component of concurrent product development that can help firms develop products faster. However, since product development activities may be coupled in complex ways, overlapping interrelated activities can present many difficulties. Without careful management of the overlapped product development process, the development effort and cost may increase, and product quality may worsen. This paper goes beyond the common recommendation to simply overlap activities as much as possible. We present a model-based framework to manage the overlapping of coupled product development activities. The model and framework identify conditions under which various types of overlapping are appropriate for a pair of coupled activities. We illustrate the model and framework with industrial applications involving the development of electronic pagers and automobile doors.product development, concurrent engineering, overlapping

Measuring the Effectiveness of Overlapping Development Activities

“…Cordero 1991, Lincke 1995. Second, there is a growing body of literature in Operations Management that has modeled the question of when one should overlap development activities and has, at least partially, drawn similar conclusions (Krishnan et al 1997, Ha and Porteus 1995, Loch and Terwiesch 1996.…”

“…Krishnan et al (1997) develop an illustrative framework of two development activities, an information supplying upstream activity and an information absorbing downstream activity. The framework introduces the concepts of upstream evolution and downstream sensitivity.…”

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