Design Structure Matrix Methods and Applications

Abstract

The design structure matrix (DSM) is a powerful tool for visualizing, analyzing, innovating, and improving systems, including product architectures, organizational structures, and process flows. Akin to a traditional N 2 chart and the System-System matrix (SV-3) in the DoD Architecture Framework (DoDAF), the DSM is a square matrix showing relationships between system elements. These elements can be components, teams, activities, or others. By analyzing the DSM, one can prescribe a better (e.g., more modular) system architecture. Adding a time-basis enables one to prescribe a faster, lower-risk process. Because the DSM highlights process feedbacks, it helps identify iterations and rework loops-key drivers of cost and schedule risk. The DSM is concise and visually appealing and is used in many organizations across diverse industries. Over the past decade the DSM has gained popularity. Users have found the tool extremely useful for fostering architectural innovation and enabling the situation awareness and empowerment that motivates the people executing complex processes. This tutorial introduces the DSM and three distinctive applications useful to product developers, systems engineers, and project and program managers. Real-life examples are presented from the aerospace, automotive, semiconductor, and other industries. Participants will engage in hands-on exercises and come away with a clearer understanding of the drivers of some critical, emergent behaviors in systems.

Project buffer sizing of a critical chain based on comprehensive resource tightness

“…Maheswari and Varghese (2005) and Bai and Wan (2008) propose the predecessor time factor matrix and the successor time factor matrix and calculate the duration of the project, but they do not consider the risk of rework caused by information feedback in sequential overlapping. Browning (2001) and Eppinger and Browning (2012) propose the rework probability matrix and rework impact matrix, but they consider that the information feedback to the upstream activity only occurs after the completion of the downstream activity, after which the rework of the upstream activity may take place. According to certain historical and scientific evidence, the optimization and expression criterion proposed in the DSM has been studied (Koukopoulos & Sani, 2014).…”

An innovative approach for planning and execution of pre-experimental runs for Design of Experiments

“…The Non-Conformity Matrix (NCM) is a Design Structure Matrix (DSM) (Browning, 2001;Eppinger & Browning, 2012) based tool developed to systematize all non-conformities (NCs) originated along a production line in a matrix form, highlighting relations and interactions between them. This is the first time that DSM based methodology is used for the process improvement phase.…”

An integrated approach to product family redesign using commonality and variety metrics

“…The approaches to define the strengths of interactions between components vary in the literature (Browning 2001;Dobberfuhl and Lange 2009;Hölttä and Otto 2005;Sosa et al 2007;, but the binary DSM using 0-1 representation (i.e., 1 indicates a connection and 0 indicates no connection) is still widely employed (Eppinger and Browning 2012) since the representation is objective and simple compared with other representation approaches. The characteristics of connectivity in the DSM such as modularity (Gershenson et al 2003(Gershenson et al , 2004Hölttä-Otto et al 2012) are also important information to analyze and redesign a platform architecture.…”

“…1 for product family redesign. To obtain a balanced redesign strategy considering variety needs, commonality, and the platform architecture, GVI (Martin and Ishii 2002), PCI (Kota et al 2000), and DSM (Eppinger and Browning 2012;Steward 1981a, b) are integrated and linked to each other. GVI helps identify which components should be common (or unique) based on an assessment of customer needs (through QFD) while PCI identifies which components are already common (and unique) based on the current platform architecture.…”