Product and Industrial Design

Project Risk Management Processes

2009-11-28T18:26:00.000Z

The most serious effects of risk to a project are:

Cost Estimating Techniques

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Analogous estimating: Is a method that uses the costs of similar projects in determining the cost of the project under consideration. It is normally used for estimating either total project cost estimates or large elements of a project. It is a relatively quick and inexpensive way of developing cost estimates and can be used for estimating the cost of work activities, but its accuracy can be questioned.

Parametric modelling: Is a method of using information from an existing database of parameters that can be related to a mathematical model to estimate the cost of similar work elements. There is great variability in both the accuracy and the tima taken to develop cost estimates.

Bottom-up estimating: Is a method of estimating that normally requires considerable effort and cost to undertake. It develops the cost estimate of a project's work activities using the detailed information generated through the WBS, resource requirements, resource rates, activity duration estimates, code of accounts, etc.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, chapter 8

Project communications management processes

2009-11-24T01:10:00.002Z

To determine the lines of communication for sending and receiving communications and how such information is to be used for the success of the project, four major processes are used:

Communication planning
Information distribution
Performance reporting
Administrative closure

Communications planning: This refers to determining the information and communication needs of the stakeholders.

Inputs: The inputs to communications planning include the communications requirements, communications technology, constraints and assumptions.

Tools and techniques: The technique that is used in this process is stakeholder analysis, which considers communications methods and technologies that will satisfy needs and provide appropriaate communications protocols without wasting resources.

Outputs: The output from this process will be the communications management plan. This will provide:

A structure to the information collection and storage systems
An information flow system that will have determined methods and communication demarcation (who gets what)
The levels of information detail that apply to each project stakeholder
Timing for the production of which types of information will be accessible
Methods for assessing the information generated
A means for updating the communications management plan

Information distribution: This process relates to making required information available to project stakeholders in a timely manner. To do this requires the communications management plan to be implemented.

Inputs: In addition to the communications management plan, the inputs to information distribution are the project master plan (PMP) and work results.

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques used in this process should include communication skills, information retrieval systems and information distribution systems. Team stakeholders share information in retrieval systems that include paper filing, electronic text databases, paper or electronic drawings, various project-related documents, reports, etc. Meetings, document issues, electronic mail, fax, voice mail and video confrencing are some of the many media that constitute the information distribution system.

Outputs: The output from information distribution is the project record. This includes information on correspondence, memos, reports and documents that need to be maintained in an organised way.

Performance reporting: It includes collecting and disseminating project process information so as to inform project stakeholders. This process includes:

Status reporting (how the project compares with what was planned)
Progress reporting (the accomplishments of the project team)
Forecasting (The status and progress of he project at completion or some other intermediate milestone)

Inputs: The inputs to performance reporting are the PMP, work results and other project records

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques for performance reporting include performance review, variance analysis, trend analysis, earned value analysis and information distribution techniques. Meetings held to assess project status or progress are referred to as performance reviews. The comparison of actual project results with planned results is called variance analysis. Trend analysis means comparing project results over time and using such results to assess whether the project's performance is getting better, staying at the same level or getting worse.

Earned value is the most commonly used method of measuring performance. The earned value technique of performance measurement was developed by the aircraft industry in the US. Earned value involves calculating the value of three variables:

The budgeted cost of work scheduled (BCWS)
The actual cost of work performed (ACWP)
The earned value or budgeted cost of work performed (BCWP)

The time and cost variances at any point during the life of a project can be determined by:

Time (schedule) variance (SV) = BCWP - BCWS
Cost variance (CV) = BCWP - ACWP

If the variances are negative then this indicates that a project is behind schedule and above budget. If the variances are positive then the project is ahead of schedule and below budget.

The trend of a project can be determined at fixed intervals using time and cost indices as follows:

Time (schedule) performance index (SPI) = BCWP/BCWS
Cost performance index (CPI) = BCWP/ACWP

These non-dimenesional indices will provide values greater than 1.0, equal to 1.0 or less than 1.0. Graphical representation will then clearly show at any status update whether a project is ahead or behind schedule and whether it is above or below budget.

Outputs: The outputs from performance reporting are performance reports and change requests. Some methods used are:

Integrated reporting methods: These provide cost and schedule reporting within the same report to give a fuller picture of project status; earned value is the most widely used integrated reporting method
Schedule reporting methods: the most common are Gantt charts, critical path method (CPM) progress charts and milestone completion lists, which can be prepared comprehensively or on an exception basis
Cost reporting methods: the most common methods are expenditure tables, histograms and S-curves, which can be prepared on a comprehensive or on an exception basis

Administrative closure: It means generating, gathering and disseminating information to formalise phase completion or project completion.

Inputs: The inputs are the performance measuring documentation and the documentation relating to the project's product. All performance measuring documentation must be available for review during phase or project closure.

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques used in performance reporting are also applicable in administrative closure.

Outputs: The outputs from administrative closure are the project archives, formal acceptance and lessons learned. The values of these three variables are used at any status update time in a project to determine whether the project is ahead of or behind schedule and above or below budget.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, chapter 8

Project cost management processes II

2009-11-24T00:38:00.004Z

Cost budgeting: Allocating the ccost estimate of resources to individual work elements is known as cost budgeting. It is the aggregation of all work element costs to create what is the budget of each subproject which, when all subproject's budgets are aggregated, will create the project's budget.

Inputs: The inputs to cost budgeting are the cost estimates, the WBS and the project schedule.

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques used in developing the cost budget are those already discussed as the cost estimating tools and techniques. As we have seen, cost estimates are frequently refined during the course of the project to reflect the additional detail available about the product of the project. During the conception phase, the budget is likely to be referred to as order-of-magnitude and to have an accuracy range that could be, more or less, from -25 to +75%. During the definition phase it might be called the budget and could have an accuracy range, more or less, from -10 to +25%. By the beginning of the implementation phase the budget may be referred to as the definitive budget and have an accuracy range, more or less, from -5 to +10%.

Outputs: The outputs from cost budgeting are the project's cost baseline. This is a time-phased budget that is used to control the project. It is derived by distributing the cost of work activities against the identified calendar period deduced from the mathematical analysis performed during schedule development. The periods can be hours, days, weeks, or months. Managing projects through teamwork and conflict and its resolution the cost baseline is developed by superimposing the costs of work tasks on to the network analysis of the scheduled time for these tasks. The cost baseline will have project time in days, weeks or months as the abscissa, and cost in suitable monetary units as the ordinate.

Cost control: It is concerned with:

Influencing the factors that create changes to the baseline
Determining changes to the baseline
Managing such changes

Inputs: The inputs to cost control are the cost baseline, performance reports, change requests and the cost management plan

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques of cost control are the cost change control system, performance measurement, additional planning and, where necessary, computerised tools. Performance measurement, using such techniques as percentage complete of each activity, earned value analysis, etc helps in the project team's assessment of the health or status of a project at any time. Earned value, compares the amount of work that was planned with what was actually accomplished, to determine if progress is as planned.

Outputs: The anticipated outputs from cost control are:

Revised cost estimates
Budget updates
Corrective action
Estimate at completion
Lessons learned

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, chapter 8

Project cost management processes I

2009-11-23T23:50:00.003Z

To determine the budget cost of a project, and to deliver the project within that cost, four major processes are used:

Resource planning
Cost estimating
Cost budgeting
Cost control

Resource planning:

Inputs: The inputs to resource planning are:

The work breakdown structure (WBS)
The scope statement
The resource pool description
Organizational policies
Historical information

In planning for the project's resources, a resource pool description or register provides essential knowledge of all possible and available resources. It include:

The number, type, size, performance output, etc. of an equipment inventory
The location, specification and range, capacity, etc. of all appropriate materials
The human resource pool from which scientists, specialists, technicians, administrative staff, trades personnel could be drawn

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques used in transforming this information into a usable output are:

Expert judgement: the expertise of people who are familiar with the work to be undertaken and what is needed to undertake it
Identified alternatives: any other approaches that would generate innovative solutions to the resoutcing issue

Outputs: The output of resource planning will be the resource requirements for the project. This will likely be a document that describe what types of resources and in what quantities are required to undertake the activities in the work breakdown structure.

Cost estimating: Cost estimating involves developing an estimate of the costs of the resources outlined in the resource requirements document as needed to complete a project's activities.

Inputs: The inputs to the cost estimating process are resource requirements, the WBS, resource rates, activity duration estimates, code of accounts and historical information. The code of accounts is likely to have been included within the WBS and will be the means for structuring work items for reporting and other purposes. The means for relating the WBS with the project organization and the costs of activities to create what is referred to as a cost breakdown structure (CBS).

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques that are used for cost estimating are:

Parametric modelling: which is any mathematical model that uses project characteristics to compute the total project cost
Bottom-up estimating: which involves estimating the cost of the individual work packages, then summarising or rolling up the individual estimates to get the total project cost
Analogous estimating: which is top-down estimating and usually means using the actual cost of a previous project to estimate the current project

Outputs: One output from the cost estimating process is the cost estimate for each of the project's activities. The other two outputs are the supporting detail and the cost management plan. Supporting detail will probably include such matters as:

How the scope of work has been estimated
How the cost estimates of resources were derived
What assumptions were made
What work elements are likely to have cost estimate ranges
The magnitude of such ranges

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, chapter 8

Project time management processes

2009-11-23T22:37:00.002Z

The processes required to ensure timely completion of the project are known as project time management and there are five of them:

Activity definition
Activity sequencing
Activity duration estimating
Schedule development
schedule control

Activity definition: Activity (or task) definition involves identifying the specific work efforts that must be performed to produce the various phase and project deliverables.

Inputs: The inputs to this process are the WBS, the scope statement and, where appropriate, historical information, constraints and assumptions. The major work elements were identified (under scope definition) when the WBS was initially set up, using an appropriate template from a similar previous project in decomposing the new project. That means answering the question:

What are the work elements required to complete the project?

Now, under activity definition, the WBS is added to by answering the further question:

How are the work elements to be carried out?

The major difference is that the final output at this stage is an activity (action steps or how) list rather than a deliverable (tangible items or what). This is likely to cause modifications to be made to the WBS; therefore the WBS is updated.

Activity sequencing: It means identifying and documenting interactivity dependencies: what relies on what.

Inputs: It is the introduction of the complementary synthesis process (recreating the connections). The inputs to this process are the activity list (now the updated WBS) and the product description.

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques that are used to sequence the activities (or tasks) of a project are:

Precedence diagramming methods (PDM) or activity on node (AON)
Arrow diagramming methods (ADM) or activity on arrow (AOA)
Conditional diagramming methods
Network templates

Outputs: The outputs from activity sequencing are the project network diagram and activity list updates.

Activity duration estimating: It is considered as being part of scheduling, but it could just as conveniently be considered as part of planning. Activity duration estimates are quantitative assessments of the likely number of work periods required to complete each work element (activity) of the project.

Inputs: The inputs to activity duration estimates are the activity list, constraints, assumptions, resource requirements, resource capabilities and historical information.

Tools and techniques: Estimating activity durations is a skill that requires experiance as well as an extensive database of relevant historical information about how long it took to do something and what was used to do it.

Outputs: The assumptions that are used in developing the time estimates should be clearly and definely documented. Associated with the assumptions will be the documentation of all activity duration estimates. These quantitative assessments should be documented and referenced against their WBS code number.

Schedule development: The schedule development process converts information generated earlier (by defining the activities, sequencing them and estimating each activity's duration) into a calendar-based assessment of when activities should start and finish.

Inputs: There are eight inputs to the process of schedule development:

Project network diagram
Activity duration networks
Resource requirements
Resource pool description
Calendars
Constraints
Assumptions
Leads (delays) and lags (overlaps)

Tools and technique: The tools and techniques used in schedule development are:

Mathematical analysis
Duration compression
Simulation
Resource levelling heuristics
Planning and scheduling software

Outputs: The outputs from schedule development are:

The project schedule, which is likely to be some sort of network diagram, bar chart, milestone, time-scaled network diagram or other means of relating the work activities against calendar time; this schedule can be presented as tabulated data or in schematic format
Supporting detail, where all identified assumptions and constraints should be fully recorded and documented
The schedule management plan, which is the documented guidelines for the project team to assist them in managing the schedule and changes to the schedule
Resource requirement updates, which are the actions that need to be taken, once resource leveling has been carried out, as a means of trying to figure out the most effective way of using the project's resources

Schedule control: Control is the comparison of what was planned to what has actually happened ('executing') and in this sub-section the time variable is dealt with.

Inputs: The inputs to schedule control are:

The project schedule (the project's time baseline)
Performance reports (providing information on schedule performance)
Change requests (these may require extending the schedule or may allow acceleration of it)
The schedule management plan (discussed above)

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques that are used in schedule control include:

The schedule change control system
Performance measurement
Additional planning
Planning and scheduling software

Outputs: The outputs from schedule control are:

The schedule updates: schedule updating is any modification to the schedule information that is used to manage the project - changes to the scheduled start and finish dates in the approved project schedule are a significant part of schedule updates
The corrective actions (expediting), which include anything done to bring expected future schedule performance into line with the project plan
The lessons learned: the causes and reasoning should be documented and used as feedback to the project and used, where applicable, as intelligence in future projects

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, chapter 7

Project Scope management II

2009-11-23T22:00:00.003Z

Scope definition: Scope definition involves subdividing the major project deliverables into smaller, more manageable components in order to improve accuracy (cost, time, resources).

Inputs: The inputs to scope definition are the scope statement, constraints, assumptions and historical information, as well as other scope planning outputs. Remember it is the scope statement that defines the boundaries of the project.

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques used in scope definition are the work breakdown atructure (WBS) templates and decomposition. Decomposition is the breaking down of the project deliverables and the project scope into greater and greater levels of detailed work, such that the components and tasks are clearly identified as being measurable items of work that will create the product or any of its intermediate deliverables.

Outputs: The output from scope definition is the WBS. The WBS is one of the most crucial parts of the project management approach: It defines the project's scope baseline. WBS is a product-oriented family tree, where each item has a unique identifier and a suitable description that defines it in few words. The WBS at this stage in its development will offer a comprehensive response to the question:

What work needs to be done to complete the project?

Scope verification: Scope verification formalises acceptance of the project scope by the stakeholders (client, customer, etc).

Inputs: The inputs to this process are:

The work results, the physical measurement of the extent of completion
The product documentation, which means what has been produced to describe the project's products

Tools and techniques: The technique that is used in inspection. This refers to all review of the project scope including measuring, examining and testing the work to determine whether it conforms to requirements.

Outputs: The output is formal acceptance of the product or service, the final deliverable or intermediate deliverable. This acceptance is formalised by being documented.

Scope change control: Scope change control controls the changes to the project scope. Scope changes may result from an external event, an error or omission in defining the project, a value-added change, etc.

Inputs: The inputs to scope change control are:

The WBS, which defines the scope baseline
Performance reports, which provide information on scope performance
Change requests, which may require either expanding the scope or shrinking it-they should be in writing before being processed
The scope management plan

Tools and techniques: It is a requirement within project scope management to have a scope change control system that is proactive and in common use throughout the project. It is this system that monitors all changes to the most current WBS and identifies such changes as legitimate scope changes.

Outputs: The three outputs from scope change control are scope changes, corrective action and lessons learned.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, chapter 7

Project Scope Management I

2009-11-23T15:59:00.004Z

The major processes that make up project project scope management are:

Initiation
Scope planning
Scope definition
Scope verification
Scope change control

These processes integrate with each other and from time to time with many of the processes in the other knowledge areas. Completion of the product scope is measured against the requirements while completion of the project scope is measured against the plan.

Initiation: We will examine the inputs, the tools and techniques and the outputs of each process.

Inputs: The inputs to this process are the:

Product description (Documents the characteristics of the product that the project has been set up to acieve)
Project selection criteria (financial return, market share, public perceptions, etc)
Strategic goals
Historical information

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques that are associated within the initiation process are project selection methods, otherwise known as decision models. These fall into two broad groups:

Benefit measurement methods, which include comparative approaches, scoring models and benefit contribution or economic models
Constrained optimisation methods, which include mathematical models using linear, non-linear, dynamic, integer and other relationships

Outputs: The outputs from the initiation process ae:

Project charter (Is a document that conveys the purpose and requirements of the project to the project manager and project team. It is the 'who', 'what', and 'why' of the project
Project manager appointed
Constraints (limits to the project budget, time period, performance requirements, contractual provisions, etc.)
Assumptions (assumptions are made at the beginning of each project phase. These assumptions will be created by the project team and are used as inputs into subsequent processes such as risk identification)

Scope Planning: Scope planning is the process of producing a written scope statement that defines the boundaries of the project work as the basis for future project decisions.

Inputs: The inputs to scope planning are the product description, which was an input to initiation, and the outputs from initiation.

Tools and techniques: The tools and techniques that are used in scope planning include:

Product analysis, which provides a better understanding of the product of the project (Techniques include: systems mapping, value planning)
Benefit - cost analysis, which involves estimating costs (outlays) and benefits (returns) and then using measures (such as payback period and return on investment) to assess the financial viability of alternatives
Alternative identification, using such techniques as brainstorming and lateral thinking, as well as subject-matter experts
Subject-matter experts

Outputs: The outputs of scope planning, which will form the basis for making future project decisions, are:

The scope ststement, which will define the boundaries of the project work and will include the project objectives and the major phase deliverables
The scope management plan, which will describe how the project scope will be managed and how changes to the project's scope will be handled

Defining the project's scope to produce a scope statement means that:

The project scope description needs to be expanded
Interim deliverables that need to be produced are determined
The processes and subprojects that are needed to provide the project's scope are determined
A tree diagram of subprojects and work assignments for each team participant needs to be created

The scope statement is a document that forms the basis for agreeing what the final deliverables will be; all changes to the project's scope need to be related back to the scope statement document. It is therefore a document that is used to confirm any and all future scope changes. This is a very important aspect of what is called configuration management. The scope management plan is an integral part of configuration management.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, chapter 7

Project scope management and time management

2009-11-22T00:19:00.003Z

The format of the processes within a knowledge area and the inputs, management tools and techniques and the inputs, management tools and techniques and outputs that are functions of each process. Many inputs and outputs are also related to more than one process and that certain outputs from one process are inputs to other processes.If we were to focus on what output elements are important then we would probably list items 1 -12 as following:

(Study) project charter
(Study) project manager identified and assigned
Scope statement
Scope management plan
WBS
Activity list
Project network diagrams
Resource allocation and levelling
Project schedule
Schedule management plan
Schedule updates
Corrective actions

Although you may feel that there is good purpose in adding one or two elements to the list, hopefully you won't disagree with those shown which are in a sequence that may be of assistance in seeing how each element can be related to each other and some calendar time frame.

If the performing organization does not have an internal document, such as a project charter, to empower someone (the project manager) with responsibility and authority for running the project, then the seeds for an ineffectively managed project, and perhaps an unsuccessful project, have already been laid.

There is also a very strong correlation between achieving project success and accountability for a project being in the hands of one person, the project manager.

Creating a paper rehearsal on how and when the activities of a project should be undertaken can only commence when the scope statement and scope management plan have been produced. It would be unwise to begin the development of a WBS before these two outputs were formulated.

Identifying and determining the work elements of a project are done in order to satisfy some overriding requirement. It is this requirement (or these requirements) that will have initiated the project. Planning and scheduling the work elements (in a format that permits monitoring actual performance against what we think it should be) are all necessary for effective control of projects. If we do not have the project properly defined through the use of the WBS and a schedule of activities analysed through the use of an (Activity On Arrow) AOA or (Activity On Node) AON network with associated mathematical analysis to determine what should happen, then we do not have the means for controlling future events.

Other important outputs that add to the effectiveness of the overall project management process cover how the schedule is managed, how changes are approved, how updates of the schedule are produced and how lessons are learned through the iteration of planning, execution and control.

The major processes that make up project scope management are:

Initiation (Project selection methods, Project charter, PM identified/assigned)
Scope planning (Cost-benefit analysis - alternatives identified- Scope statement - Scope management plan)
Scope definition (Templates & decomposition - WBS)
Scope verification (Inspection - Formal acceptance)
Scope change control (Performance measurement - Scope changes - Corrective action)

The processes required to ensure timely completion of the project are known as project time management and there are five of them:

Activity definition (Decomposition - Activity list - WBS update)
Activity sequencing (PDM - ADM - Network diagram - Activity list update)
Activity duration estimating (Estimating methods - Estimates - Activity list update)
Schedule development (Maths analysis - Duration compression - Project schedule - Schedule management plan)
Schedule control (Performance measurement - Schedule updates - Corrective action)

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 124

Project management process II

2009-11-21T14:19:00.004Z

Project management is characterised by methods of restructuring management and adopting special management techniques. The project management process provides the basis for innovation and the tools and techniques that permit the solving of problems.

There are five basic management processes in project management:

Initiating
Planning
Executing
Controlling
Closing

Although the planning, executing and controlling processes are also found within the traditional management approach, the processes of initiating and closing are not. These two processes are unique to the project management process. Within each of the basic processes there are a number of subprocesses.

These management peocesses are not discrete, one-time events; they are overlapping activities that occur at varying levels of intensity throughout each phase of the project. The output of one process becomes the input to another, just as the output of one phase becomes the input to initiating the next. Each subprocess can be described in terms of its:

Inputs
Tools and techniques
Outputs

The links between the processes: The five management processes are interrelated. They are linked by the results they produce: in other words, the output from one becomes the input to another. Among the central process groups of planning, executing and controlling, the links are iterated: planning provides executing with a documental project plan and then provides documented updates to the plan as the project progresses.

Initiating: Initiating is the process of formally recognising that a new project exists or that an existing project should continue into its next phase. The principal actions are to :

Investigate the overriding purpose (the requirement) of the current phase (or the project as a whole, if it's in the conception phase)
Identify and rank the goals, objectives and activities that will be needed to support the purpose and provide the end-of-phase deliverables

Planning: Planning means devising a work plan that will accomplish the requirement. Planning includes the initial planning of the scope of the project. This requires a written statement of the scope (extent) of the project:

- Showing why the project is to be undertaken

- Specifying the intermediate and final deliverables

- Clearly defining the project objectives (the triple constraints and any other goals)

At this point it is necessary to break the project down into detailed tasks (decomposition) approach is needed so as to provide better control.

The next step is identifying and documenting inter-activity dependencies in order to create a sequence of work. The duration of each task is estimated. The foregoing steps can together be defined as planning. The plan has then to be turned into a time-related schedule. This requires the analysis of the tasks and their sequences while taking account of their durations and resources requirements. It requires an examination of what resources are needed in what quantities to perform the project activities.

The results of this examination, with estimates of the cost of the resources to complete the project tasks, can then be used to allocate the resulting cost estimates to individual project components. Taking these results and the outcomes of other planning processes, and putting them into a consistent coherent document, creates the master plan from which the project work is implemented.

Executing: Executing refers to the coordination of resources to achieve the requirement. This means performing the activities that are included within the project plan. That may include:

- Developing individual and group skills to enhance project performance;

- Making information available to project stakeholders when they need it;

- Obtaining quotations, bids, offers or proposals for outsourced resources or supplies

This Procurement activity will also include choosing from among potential vendors and suppliers and managing the relationship with all internal and external entities.

Controlling: Controlling means measuring progress against the plan and taking corrective action where necessary. Control includes coordinating scope, time, quality and cost changes across the entire project. The control process includes:

- Monitoring project results against quality standards

- Identifying ways of eliminating unsatisfactory performance

- Evaluating overall project performance on a regular basis to provide confidence that the

project will satisfy the relevant quality standards

- Collecting and disseminating progress information

- Responding to changes in risk over the course of project

Closing: Closing means the formalised acceptance that the requirements of a phase, stage, etc. have been met and that this phase, or stage, etc. of the project can be completed

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 100

Project success factors

2009-11-21T13:28:00.004Z

Project managers need help in focusing on the critical factors that have most impact on project implementation success. Research carried out in the early 1990s confirmed the importance of managerial, behavioural and organisational issues to the successful outcome of projects.The research also determined that the critical success factors (CSFs), are those that remain within the control of the project manager.

Here are the ten CSFs, with a brief definition of each one:

Project mission: Initial clearly defined goals and general directions
Top management support: Willingness of top management to provide the necessary resources and authority or power for implementation success
Project/plans and schedules: A detailed specification of the individual action steps for system implementation
Client (user/customer) consultation: Communication and consultation with, and active listening to, all affected parties
Personnel: Requirement, selection and training of the necessary personnel for the implementation project team
Technical tasks: Availability of the required technology and expertise to accomplish the specific technical action steps
Client (user/customer) acceptance: The act of selling the final project to its ultimate intended users
Monitoring: Timely provision of comprehensive control and feedback information at each phase of the process
Communication: The provision of an appropriate network and necessary data to all stakeholders in the project
Troubleshooting: The ability to handle unexpected crises and deviations from the plan

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 96

Project management process

2009-11-21T12:57:00.005Z

Modern project management had its beginnings in the US in the 1950s. It could be said that the 1960s was the period of experimenting with organizational structures, the 1970s saw a concentration on the people issues, while the 1980s refined the tools and techniques of the process. The 1990s was a period of consolidation.

This sequence reflect progress in the US; it cannot be applied to most other Western developed nations: most parts of Europe, for instance, would be some years behind the US.

The project management context describes the larger context in which projects operate. Managing the day-to-day activities of a project is necessary for success but it is not sufficient: the project management team must understand the broader context. The project life-cycle, the project stakeholders, the organizational influences, the key general management influences and the socio-economic influences are key aspects. In other words, a poject must be seen as a system which is a subsystem of another lerger system.

According to the US project management industry, generally accepted project management practices have been organised into nine knowledge areas, each of which can be described in terms of its component processe. The knowledge areas as defined by the PMI and as documented in the Guide to the PMBOK are: Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Human Resources, Communications, Risk, Procurement and Integration.

Often project management is used to describe an organizational approach. This approach may be called management by projects and treats many ongoing operations as projects in order to apply the project management process. Not all work activities need to be identified as projects: work activities that do not satisfy the criteria of project work should not therefore be subject to the project management process.

Simply delivering a project's product that satisfies the triple constraints of performance, time and cost is not in itself sufficient to achieve project success. Achieved triple constraints would mean little in a project that had been continually in trouble throughout its life-cycle or had poor client-project team relationships, inadequate communication feedback and so on.

Projects are composed of processe. A process is a series of actions bringing about a result. Project processes are performed by people and generally fall into one of two major categories: project management processes (concerned with describing and organising the work of the project) and product-oriented processes (concerned with specifying and creating the project product).

The process of project management describes a generalised view of the impact of various project management processes. For example, the process of scope definition produces a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), which is then used as input to activity definition, activity sequencing, resource planning and cost estimating.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 103

Projects: one-time events

2009-11-20T16:15:00.004Z

Breaking projects into phases within their total project duration is an important issue. This phasing, and the associated deliverables, are essential aspects for the better management of today's complex and multidisciplinary projects. Having an appreciation of the importance of intermediate deliverables and their achievement makes even the most complicated project much less complex and much easier to deal with.

The identification and formalisation of all stakeholders to a project are also extremely important. The recognition of the different types of stakeholders, and their relationships to the work, needs to be dealt with early in the project's life-cycle. The selection

of stakeholders (including the project team and project manager) can have a significant effect on the future running and performance of a project.

The organisational structure of the participating organizations, the structure of the project organisation and the WBS are all matters whose importance cannot be underestimated.

Hopefully, you will now have the impression that, even with the best people and the best computer systems, the successful outcome of your project will be affected strongly by the structures of the project organisation and of the participating organisations.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 87

Systems mapping

2009-11-20T15:46:00.003Z

A system is an entity that maintains its existence and functions as a whole through the interaction of its parts. With the behaviour of different systems depending on how the parts are related, rather than the parts themselves, you will be able to understand many different systems using the same principles.

As systems form parts of larger subsystems and are composed in turn of smaller systems, the properties of a system are the properties of the whole. None of the parts has those properties. The more complex the system, the more unpredictable the whole system's properties.

Breaking a whole into its parts is analysis; through analysis you gain knowledge. Conversley, building parts into wholes is synthesis. When you take a system apart and analyse it, it loses its properties. You now know that to understand systems you need to look at them as wholes.

Detail complexity means there is a great number of different parts. Dynamic complexity means there is a great number of possible connections between the parts, because each part may have a number of different states.

Each part of a system may influence the whole system. When you change one element, there are always side-effects. Systems resist change because the parts are connected. However, when they do change, it can be sudden and dramatic. There will be particular places where you can effect large changes with very little effort once you understand the system.

You have seen that the structure and process of systems can only be understood by mapping them. Normally you would start the mapping process with pre-analysis diagrams (rich picture) and then this would be followed by structure and relationship diagrams (spray diagram, relationship diagram, systems map, influence diagram, Flow-process diagram, Input-output diagrams, Flow-block diagram, multiple-cause diagram, and etc). Process diagrams can then be used when inputs, outputs or actual flows between components need to be understood.

It is expected that this will not be the end but the start of your transformation into a systems thinker and that you will achieve considerable future benefit from mapping issues as well as applying the approach to the projects that you will work on. We know this will enhance your ability as a problem solver and permit you to make better decisions.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 66

Systems theory

2009-11-20T15:12:00.003Z

The response of business and management in dealing with the ever-increasing demands of society, which are, as we know, continually changing, is to be innovative. Innovation is best achieved by management that is able to both analyse and synthesise (Systems thinking (looking at the whole) and analytical thinking (looking at the parts) go together).

Organisations that practice systemic thinking and use the systems approach are more capable of handling change than those organisations that do not. In these team environments where the culture is cooperation, change can be better handled and innovation given the opportunity to grow.

Traditionally, management has undertaken its role through using an analytical approach by taking apart the thing to be understood, trying to understand the behaviour of the parts taken separately and then assembling this understanding into an understanding of the whole. Many, if not most, businesses practice this form of management.

Analysis on its own is an inadequate methodology in understanding and explaining the real-life problems of today. Systemic thinking and the systems approach are, respectively, an ability and a methodology for all members of society to use in understanding better the structure and function and how things operate as they do.

Much managerial and academic wisdom about organisational problem solving stems from the study of segmentalism. It is therefore no surprise that this has created a situation that is not very helpful in understanding change and innovation.

A system is an arrangement and set of relationships among multiple parts operating as a whole.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 46

Management: the means to transform

2009-11-20T11:17:00.003Z

Science as a subject is unique in having, since the early nineteenth century, developed organised human activity by adopting the analytical process to explain and attempt to solve complex issues. Science has been a strong influence in the way people have been educated. An equally strong influence has been the universal use of the analytical process of breaking things down into small elements.

This process led to seeing work as tasks, and that perception has done much to hold up the development of modern management processes in many types of company and firm. Other influences were the line-of-command method of organisational hierarchy and the use of rulebooks for working procedures.

It is the continuing impact of the associated type of management, referred to as traditional management, which organizations have been wrestling with, knowing that a different way to manage is needed. The type of product, process, service or project that business has to deal with today cannot be managed by using the traditional approach. It is for this reason that currently there is a high interest in project management as the popular process (way of thinking, series of tools and techniques, etc.) that deals with the handling of change and innovation. For these reasons project management is sometimes referred to as change management.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 31

Information systems used at the various stages of the development process

2009-11-20T00:45:00.002Z

Product planning:

Product segment map
Technology roadmap
Product-process change matrix
Aggregate resource plan
Product plan
Mission statement

Customer needs identification:

Customer needs lists

Concept generation:

Function diagrams
Concept classification tree
Concept combination table
Concept descriptions and sketches

Concept selection:

Concept screening matrix
Concept scoring matrix

Product specidications:

Needs-metrics matrix
Competitive benchmarking charts
Specifications lists

System-level design:

Schematic diagram
Geometric layout
Differentation plan
Commonality plan

Detailed design:

Bill of materials
Prototyping plan

Industrial design:

Aesthetic/ergonomic importance survey

Product development economics:

NPV analysis spreadsheet

Project management:

Contract book
Task list
Design structure matrix
Gantt chart
PERT chart
Staffing matrix
Risk analysis
Weekly status memo
Buffer report
Postmortem project report

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 16

Postmortem Project Evaluation

2009-11-20T00:24:00.002Z

An evaluation of the project's performance after it has been completed is useful for both personal and organizational improvement. This review is often called a postmortem project evaluation. The postmortem evaluation is usually an open-ended discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the project plan and execution. This discussion is sometimes facilitated by an outside consultant or by someone within the company who was not involved in the project. Several questions help to guide the discussion:

Did the team achieve the mission articulated in the mission statement?
Which aspects of project performance (development time, cost, product quality, manufacturing cost) were most positive?
Which aspects of project performance were most negative?
Which tools, methods, and practices contributed to the positive aspects of performance?

A postmortem report is then prepared as part of the formal closing of the project. These reports are used in the project planning stage of future projects to help team members know what to expect and to help identify what pitfalls to avoid. Some important contributors to project success are:

Empowerment of a team leader
Effective team problem solving
Emphasis on adherence to schedule
Effective communication links
Full participation from multiple functions
Building on prior experience in cartridge development
Use of computer-aided design (CAD) tools for communication and analysis
Early understanding of manufacturing capabilities
Use of three-dimensional CAD tools and plastic molding analysis tools
Earlier participation by the customer in the design decisions
Improved integration of tooling design and production system design

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 16

Project Execution

2009-11-19T23:46:00.003Z

Smooth execution of even a well-planned project requires careful attention. Three problems of project execution are particularly important: (1) What mechanisms can be used to coordinate tasks? (2) How can project status be assessed? and (3) What actions can the team take to correct for undesirable deviations from the project plan?

Coordination Mechanisms: Coordination among the activities of the different members of the team is required throughout a product development project. The need for coordination is a natural outgrowth of dependencies among tasks. Coordination needs also arise from the inevitable changes in the project plan caused by unanticipated events and new information. Here are several mechanisms used by teams to address these difficulties and facilitate coordination: Informal communication - Meetings - Schedule display - Weekly updates - Incentives - Process documents
Assessing Project Status: Project leaders and senior managers need to be able to assess project status to know whether corrective actions are warranted. In projects of modest size project leaders are fairly easily able to assess the status of the project. The project leader assesses project status during formal team meetings, by reviewing the project schedule, and by gathering information in informal ways
Corrective Actions: After discovering an undesirable deviation from the project plan, the team attempts to take corrective action. Problems almost always manifest themselves as potential schedule slippage, and so most of these corrective actions relate to arresting potential delays. Some of the possible actions include:

Changing the timing or frequency of meetings
Changing the project staff
Locating the team together physically
Soliciting more time and effort from the team
Focusing more effort on the critical tasks
Engaging outside resources
Changing the project scope or schedule

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 16

Accelerating Projects

2009-11-19T23:25:00.002Z

Product development time is often the dominant concern in project planning and execution. Accelerating a project before it has begun is much easier than trying to expedite a project that is already underway. A set of important guidelines for accelerating product development projects are outlined as follows, the first set of guidelines applies to the project as a whole.

Start the project early
Manage the project scope
Facilitate the exchange of essential information

The second set of essentials is aimed at decreasing the time required to complete the tasks on the critical path. These guidelines arise from the fact that the only way to reduce the time required to complete a project is to shorten the critical path.

Complete individual tasks on the critical path more quickly
Aggregate safety times
Eliminate some critical path tasks entirely
Eliminate waiting delays for critical path resources
Overlap selected critical tasks
Pipeline large tasks
Outsource some tasks

The final set of guidelines is aimed at completing coupled tasks more quickly.

Perform more iterations quickly
Decouple tasks to avoid iterations
Consider sets of solutions

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 16

Elements of the project plan

2009-11-19T21:40:00.003Z

Below the elements of the project plan is discussed. The elements of the project plan includes: the project task list, team staffing and organization, the project schedule, the project budget, and the project risk areas.

Project Task List: A project consists of a collection of tasks. The first step in planning a project is to list the tasks which make up the project. For most product development projects the team will not be able to list every task in great detail; too much uncertainty remains in the subsequent development activities. The task list should contain from 50 to 200 items. After listing all of the tasks, the team estimates the effort required to complete each task. Effort is usually expressed in units of person-hours, person-days, or person-weeks, depending on the size of the project. Note that these estimates reflect the "actual working time" that members of the development team would have to apply to the task and not the "elapsed calendar time" the team expects the task to require.

Team Staffing and Organization: The project team is the collection of individuals who complete project tasks. Whether or not this team is effective depends on a wide variety of individual and organizational factors. The minimum number of people required on the project team can be estimated by dividing the total estimated time to complete the project tasks by the planned project duration. For example, the estimated task time for a project was 354 person-weeks. The team hoped to complete the project in 12 months (or about 50 weeks), so the minimum possible team size would be seven people.

Project Schedule: The project schedule is the merger of the project tasks and the project timeline. The schedule identifies when major project milestones are expected to occur and when each project task is expected to begin and end. The team uses this schedule to track progress and to orchestrate the exchange of materials and information between individuals. It is therefore important that the schedule is viewed as credible by the entire project team. To create a baseline project schedule the following steps are recommended:

Use the DSM or PERT chart to identify the dependencies among tasks
Position the key project milestones along a timeline in a Gantt chart
Schedule the tasks, considering the project staffing and other critical resources
Adjust the timing of the milestones to be consistent with the time required for the tasks

Project Budget: Budgets are customarily represented with a simple spreadsheet, although many companies have standard budgeting forms for requests and approvals. The major budget items are staff, materials and services, project-specific facilities, and spending on outside development resources. For most projects the largest budget item is the cost of staff
Project Risk Plan: Projects rarely proceed exactly according to plan. Some of the deviations from the plan are minor and can be accommodated with little or no impact on project performance. Other deviations can cause major delays, budget overruns, poor product performance, or high manufacturing costs. Often the team can assemble, in advance, a list of what might go wrong, that is, the areas of risk for the project. After identifying each risk, the team can prioritize the risks. To do so, some teams use a scale combining severity and likelihood of each risk. A complete risk plan also includes a list of actions the team will take to minimize the risk

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 16

Baseline Project Planning

2009-11-19T17:00:00.003Z

The project plan is the roadmap for the remaining development effort. The plan is important in coordinating the remaining tasks and in estimating the required development resources and development time. Some measure of project planning occurs at the earliest stages of product development, but the importance of the plan is highest at the end of the concept development phase, just before significant development resources are commited. After establishing baseline, the team considers whether it should modify the olan to change the planned development time, budget, or project scope. The results of the concept development phase plus the project plan make up the contract book.

The contract book: A contract book is used to document the project plan and the results of the concept development phase of the development process. The word contract is used to emphasize that the document represents an agreement between the development team and the senior management of the company about project goals, direction, and resource requirements. The book is sometimes actually signed by the key team members and the senior managers of the company. The contents of a contract book includes: Mission statement, customer needs list, competitive analysis, product specifications, sketches of product concept, concept test report, sales forecast, economic analysis/business case, manufacturing plan, project plan (task list, design structure matrix, team staffing and organization, schedule (gantt and/or PERT), budget, risk plan), project performance measurement plan, and incentives

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 16

Representing tasks in project management

2009-11-19T16:42:00.003Z

Product development projects involve the completion of hundreds or even thousands of tasks. usually in project management the tasks are represented by boxes, and the information (data) dependencies among the tasks are represented by arrows. We refer to this representation as an information-processing view or a data-driven perspective of product development because most of the dependencies involve transfer of information (data) between the tasks.

There are three kinds of task dependencies known as: sequential, parallel, and coupled.

in sequential kind, the dependencies impose a sequential order in which the tasks must be completed. Coupled tasks are mutually dependent; each task requires the result of the other tasks in order to be completed. Coupled tasks either must be executed simultaneously with continual exchanges of information or must be carried out in an iterative fashion. When coupled tasks are completed iteratively, the tasks are performed either sequentially or simultaneously with the understanding that the results are tentative and that each task will most likely be repeated one or more times until the team converges on a solution.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 16

Managing Projects

2009-11-19T15:46:00.003Z

Successful product development requires effective project management. Some of the key ideas are outlined as follows?

Projects consist of tasks linked to each other by dependencies. Tasks can be sequential, parallel, or coupled
The longest chain of dependent tasks defines the critical path, which dictates the minimum possible completion time of the project
The desgin structure matrix (DSM) can be used to represent dependencies. Gantt charts are used to represent the timing of tasks. PERT charts represent both dependencies and timing and are frequently used to compute the critical path
Project planning results in a task list, a project schedule, staffing requirements, a project budget, and a risk plan. These items are key elements of the contract book
Most opportunities for accelerating projects arise during the project planning phase. There are many ways to complete development projects more quickly
Project execution involves coordination, assessment of progress, and taking action to address deviations from the plan
Evaluating the performance of a project encourages and facilitates persoanl and organizational improvement

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 16

Change: using it to our advantage

2009-11-16T00:42:00.005Z

The industrial revolution had a major impact on the rate and direction of social development within western industrialised nations. It could be said that the impacts were essentially positive but, in recent decades, our working lives have been adversely affected by the lines of command philosophy. As bureaucracy, hierarchy and strict codes of practice are no longer appropriate to today's working dynamic, we must change the way our organizations are structured, the way people are assembled to work together and the tools and techniques we use.

A crucial step in this new thinking is to understand what the learning organization needs to concentrate on in order to achieve organizational change.

The learning organization will be distinguished from other traditional organizations by excelling in five basic disciplines:

Systems thinking
Personal mastery
Mental models
Building shared vision
Team learning

Most of the transformation must come from individuals themselves and, in particular, the way they think. It is only through being creative that we can bring into being something that does not currently exist. Creativity is at the core of bringing about reengineering of the traditional organization. Innovation is the process by which it happens. But innovation can only be truly mobilised in an organization if the intellectual potential of all people resources is used.

Of course, to bring about change is a major undertaking and it isn't just to do with doing one thing: a holistic approach is needed. It is contended that the project management approach currently provides the most attractive basis on which organizations can institutionalise change.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 17

Product Development Economics

2009-11-10T20:39:00.003Z

Product development teams must make many decisions in the course of a development project. Economic analysis is a useful tool for supporting this decision making.

The method consists of four steps:

Build a base-case financial model
Perform a sensitivity analysis to understand the relationships between financial success and the key assumptions and variables of the model
Use the sensitivity analysis to understand project trade-offs
Consider the influence of qualitative factors on project success

Quantitative analysis using NPV techniques is practiced widely in business. The technique forces product development teams to look objectively at their projects and their decisions. At the very least, they must go through the process of creating realistic project schedules and budgets. Financial modeling provides a method for quantitatively understanding the key profit drives of the project
Quantitative techniques such as financial modeling and analysis rest upon assumptions about the external environment. This environment is constantly changing and may be influenced by a development team's decisions or by other uncontrollable factors. Further, quantitative analysis, by its very nature, considers only that which is measurable, yet many key factors influencing the project are highly complex or uncertain and are thus difficult to quantify
Qualitative analysis emphasizes the importance of such difficult-to-quantify issues by asking specifically what the interactions are between the project and the rest of the firm, the market, and the macro environment
Together, quantitative and qualitative techniques can help ensure that the team makes economically sound development decisions

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 15

Advice to Individual Inventors

2009-11-04T21:30:00.002Z

Most students of product development and product development professionals have at some point had an idea for a novel product. Often further thought results in a product concept, which sometimes embodies a patentable invention. A common misconception among inventors is that a raw idea or even a product concept is highly valuable. Here is some advice based on observations of many inventors and product commercialization efforts.

A patent can be a useful element of a plan for developing and commercializing a product. However, it is not really a central element of that activity. Patenting an invention can usually wait until many of the technical and market risks have been addressed
A patent by itself rarely has any commercial value. (An idea by itself has even less value.) To extract value from a product opportunity, an inventor must typically complete a product design, resolving the difficult trade-offs associated with addressing customer needs while minimizing production costs. Once this hard work is completed, a product design may have substantial value. In most cases, pursuing a patent is not worth the effort except as part of a larger effort to take a product concept through to a substantial development milestone such as a working prototype. If the design is proven through prototyping and testing, a patent can be an important mechanism for increasing the value of this intellectual property
Licensing a patent to a manufacturer as an individual inventor is very difficult. If you are serious about your product opportunity, be prepared to pursue commercialization of your product on your own or in partnership with a smaller company. Once you have demonstrated a market for the product, licensing to a larger entity becomes much more likely
File a provisional patent application. This action provides patent protection for a year, while you evaluate whether your idea is worth pursuing

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 14

Patents and Intellectual Property

2009-11-04T21:02:00.003Z

A patent is a temporary monopoly granted by a government to exclude others from using, making, or selling an invention. Patent law is intended to balance an incentive for invention with the free disseminetion of information
Utility patents are the central element of the intellectual property for most technology-based product development efforts
An invention can be patented if it is useful, novel, and nonobvious
The final invention that is patented is defined by the patent claims. The rest of the patent application essentially serves as background and explanation in support of the claims
We recommend a seven-step process for pursuing a patent:

Formulate a strategy and plan
Study prior inventions
Outline claims
Write the description of the invention
Refine claims
Pursue application
Reflect on the results and the process

Provisional patent applications and patent cooperation treaty (PCT) applications can be used to minimize the costs of pursuing patent protection while preserving all future options

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 14

Total Unit Cost

2009-11-04T16:03:00.004Z

Terminology:

Setup: is the work required to prepare the equipment for a production run. Setup costs are charged for each run
Tooling costs: are incurred in advance of the first production run, and tooling can usually be reused for later production runs. However, in very high-volume production runs, tooling wears out and therefore is a recurring expense. Tooling costs may be spread over the entire production volume or may be charged separately. CNC programming time is generally also a one-time expense, like a tooling cost
Material types: are listed for each part. Material weights and costs include processing scrap and waste
Processing costs: vary with the type of manufacturing equipment used and include charges for both machine time and labor

While fixed costs (setup and tooling) are sometimes billed separately from material and processing costs, for these examples, fixed costs are spread over the production volume. Unit costs are calculated as:

Total unit costs = (Setup costs + Tooling costs)/Volume + Vriable costs

The cost rates given include overhead charges, so these data are representative of custom components purchased from suppliers.

Variable costs = Material + Processing

Processing costs include overhead charges.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 11

Identify control factors, noise factors, and performance metrics

2009-11-02T23:25:00.002Z

The robust design procedure begins with identification of three lists: control factors, noise factors, and performance metrics for the experiment:

Control factors: These are the design variables to be varied in a controlled manner during the experiment, in order to explore the product's performance under the many combinations of parameter setpoints. These parameters are called control factors because they are among the variables that can be specified for production and/or operation of the product
Noise factors: Noise factors are variables that cannot be explicitly controlled during the manufacturing and operation of the product. Noise factors may include manufacturing variances, changes in materials properties, multiple user scenarios or operating conditions, and even deterioration or misuse of the product
Performance metrics: These are the product specifications of interest in the experiment. Usually the experiment is analyzed with one or two key product specifications as the performance metrics in order to find control factor setpoints to optimize this performance. These metrics may be derived directly from key specifications where robustness is of critical concern

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 13

Robust Design

2009-11-02T22:48:00.004Z

Robust Design is a set of engineering design methods used to create robust poducts and processes.

A robust product (or process) is one that performs properly even in the presence of noise effects. Noises are due to many kinds of uncontrolled variation that may affect performance, such as manufacturing variations, operating conditions, and product deterioration
To approach to the development of robust products based on design of experiments (DOE), a seven-step process for robust design is outlined in below:

Identify control factors, noise factors, and performance metrics
Formulate an objective function
Develop the experimental plan
Run the experiment
Conduct the analysis
Select and confirm factor setpoints
Reflect and repeat

Orthogonal array experimental plans provide a very efficient method for exploring the main effects of each factor chosen for the experiment
To achieve robust performance, use of objective functions helps in capturing both mean performance due to each control factor and variance of performance due to noise factors
Analysis of means and factor effects charts facilitate the choice of robust parameter setpoints
Because many nuances are involved in successful DOE, most teams applying these methods will benefit from assistance by a DOE expert
Design of experiment is a well-established field of expertise. Most product development teams should include team members with DOE training or have access to engineers and/or statisticans with specialized expertise in design and analysis of experiments

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 13

Prototyping

2009-10-24T10:50:00.003+01:00

Product development almost always requires the building and testing of prototypes. A prototype is an approximation of the product on one or more dimensions of interest.

Prototypes can be usefully classified along two dimensions: (1) the degree to which they are physical as opposed to analytical and (2) the degree to which they are comprehensive as opposed to focused
Prototypes are used for learning, communication, integration, and milestones. While all types of prototypes can be used for all of these purposes, physical prototypes are usually best for communication, and comprehensive prototypes are best for integration and milestones
Several principles are useful in guiding decisions about prototypes during product development:

Analytical prototypes are generally more flexible than physical prototypes
Physical prototypes are required to detect unanticipated phenomena
A prototype may reduce the risk of costly iterations
A prototype may expedite other development steps
A prototype may restructure task dependencies

3D CAD modeling and free-form fabrication technologies have reduced the relative cost and time required to creta and analyze prototypes
A four-step method for planning a prototype is:

Define the purpose of the prototype
Establish the level of approximation of the prototype
Outline an experimental plan
Create a schedule for procurement, construction, and testing

Milestone prototypes are defined in the product development project plan. The number of such prototypes and their timing is one of the key elements of the overall development plan

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 12

Design for Manufacturing Process

2009-10-21T14:37:00.003+01:00

It consists of five steps plus iteration: the DFM method begins with the estimation of the manufacturing cost of the proposed design. This helps the team to determine at a general level which aspects of the design - components, assembly, or support - are most costly.

Step 1: Estimate the manufacturing costs

it is based on a simple input-output model of a manufacturing system. The inputs include raw materials, purchased components, employees' efforts, energy, and equipment. The outputs include finished goods and waste. Manufacturing cost is the sum of all of the expenditures for the inputs of the system and for disposal of the wastes produced by the system. As the metric of cost for a product, firms generally use unit manufacturing cost, which is computed by dividing the total manufacturing costs for some period (usually a quarter or a year) by the number of units of the product manufactured during that period. The unit manufacturing cost of a product consists of costs in three categories:

Component costs: The components of a product (also simply called parts of the product) may include standard parts purchased from suppliers. Other components are custom parts, made according to the manufacturer's design from raw materials, such as sheet steel, plastic pellets, or aluminum bars
Assembly costs: Discrete goods are generally assembled from parts. The process of assembling almost always incurs labor costs and may also incur costs for equipment and tooling
Overhead costs: Overhead is the category used to encompass all of the other costs. It is useful to distinguish between two types of overhead: support costs and other indirect allocations

Step 2: Reduce the costs of components

For most highly engineered discrete goods the cost of purchased components will be the most significant element of the manufacturing cost. The main strategies for minimizing the costs are outlined as following:

Understand the process constraints and cost drivers: Some component parts may be costly simply because the designers did not understand the capabilities, cost drivers, and constraints of the production process
Redesign components to eliminate processing steps: Careful scrutiny of the proposed design may lead to suggestions for redesign that can result in simplification of the production process. Reducing the number of steps in the part fabrication process generally results in reduced costs as well
Choose the appropriate economic scale for the part process: The manufacturing cost of a product usually drops as the production volume increases. This phenomenon is labeled economies of scale
Standardize components and processes: The principle of economies of scale also applies to the selection of components and processes. As the production volume of a component increases, the unit cost of the component decreases
Adhere to "Black Box" component procurement: A component cost reduction strategy used effectively in the japanese auto industry is called black box supplier design. Under this approach, the team provides a supplier with only a black box description of the component - a description of what the component has to do, not how to achieve it

Step 3: Reduce the costs of assembly

Design for assembly (DFA) is a fairly well-established subset of DFM which involves minimizing the cost of assembly

Step 4: Reduce the costs of supporting production

In working to minimize the costs of components and the costs of assembly, the team may also achieve reductions in the demands placed on the production support functions. For example, a reduction in the number of parts reduces the demands on inventory management

Step 5: Consider the impact of DFM decisions on other factors

Minimizing manufacturing cost is not the only objective of the product development process. The economic success of a product also depends on the quality of the product, the timeliness of product introduction, and the cost of developing the product

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 11

Design For Manufacturing (DFM)

2009-10-20T20:50:00.003+01:00

Design for manufacturing (DFM) is aimed at reducing manufacturing costs while simultaneously improving (or at least not inappropriately compromising) product quality, development time, and development cost.

DFM begins with the concept development phase and system-level design phase; in these phases important decisions must be made with the manufacturing cost implications in mind
DFM utilizes estimates of manufacturing cost to guide and prioritize cost reduction efforts. Cost estimation requires expertise with the relevant production processes. Suppliers and manufacturing experts must be involved in this process
Since accurate cost estimation is very difficult, much of DFM practice involves making informed decisions in the absence of detailed cost data
Component costs are reduced by understanding what drives these costs. Solutions may involve novel component design concepts or the incremental improvement of existing designs through simplification and standardization
Assembly costs can be reduced by following well-established design-for-assembly (DFA) guidelines. Components can be redesigned to simplify assembly operations, or components can be eliminated entirely by integration of their functions into other components
Reduction of manufacturing support costs begins with an understanding of the drivers of complexity in the production process. Design decisions have a large impact on the costs of supporting production. Choices should be made with these effects in mind, even though overhead cost estimates are often insensitive to such changes
DFM is an integrative method taking place throughout the development process and requiring inputs from across the development team
DFM decisions can affect product development lead time, product development cost, and product quality. Trade-offs will frequently be necessary between manufacturing cost and these equality important broader issues

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 11

Management of the industrial design process

2009-10-19T21:03:00.002+01:00

Industrial design is typically involved in the overall product development process during several different phases. The timing of the ID effort depends on the nature of the product being designed. To explain the timing of the ID effort it is convenient to classify products as technology-driven products and user-driven products.

Technology-driven products: The primary characteristic of a technology-driven product is that its core benefit is based on its technology, or its ability to accomplish a specific technical task. While such a product may have important aesthetic or ergonomic requirements, consumers will most likely purchase the product primarily for its technical performance. Foe example, a hard disk drive for a computer is largely technology driven. Accordingly, the role of ID is often limited to packaging the core technology
User-driven products: The core benefit of a user-driven product is derived from the functionality of its interface and/or its aesthetic appeal. Typically there is a high degree of user interaction for these products. Accordingly, the user interfaces must be safe, easy to use, and easy to maintain. The product's external appearance is often important to differentiate the product and to create pride of ownership

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 10

The Industrial Design Process

2009-10-19T20:10:00.004+01:00

Specifically, the industrial design process can be thought of as consisting of the following phases:

Investigation of customer needs: The product development team begins by documenting customer needs, identifying customer needs. Since industrial designers are skilled at recognizing issues involving user interactions, ID involvement is crucial in the needs process. For example, in researching customer needs for a new medical instrument, the team would study an operating room, interview physicians, and conduct focus groups. While involvement of marketing, engineering, and ID certainly leads to a common, comprehensive understanding of customer needs for the whole team, it particularly allows the industrial designer to gain an intimate understanding of the interactions between the user and the product
Conceptualization: Once the customer needs and constraints are understood, the industrial designers help the team conceptualize the product. During the concept generation stage engineers naturally focus their attention upon finding solutions to the technical subfunctions of the product. At this time, the industrial designers concentrate upon creating the product's form and user interfaces. Industrial designers make simple sketches, known as thumbnail sketches, of each concept. These sketches are a fast and inexpensive medium for expressing ideas and evaluating possibilities. The proposed concepts may then be matched and combined with the technical solutions under exploration. Concepts are grouped and evaluated by the team according to the customer needs, technical feasibility, cost, and manufacturing considerations
Preliminary Refinement: In the preliminary refinement phase, industrial designers build models of the most promising concepts. Soft models are typically made in full scale using foam or foam-core board. They are the second-fastest method - only slightly slower than sketches - used to evaluate concepts. Concepts are evaluated by industrial designers, engineers, marketing personnel, and (at times) potential customers through the process of touching, feeling, and modifying the models. Typically, designers will build as many models as possible depending on time and financial constraints. Concepts that are particularly difficult to visualize require more models than do simpler ones
Further refinement and final concepts selection: At this stage, industrial designers often switch from soft models and sketches to hard models and information-intensive drawings known as renderings. Renderings show the details of the design and often depict the product in use. Drawn in two or three dimensions, they convey a great deal of information about the product. Renderings are often used for color studies and for testing customers' reception to the proposed product's features and functionality
Control drawings or models: Industrial designers complete their development process by making control drawings or control models of the final concept. Control drawings or models document functionality, features, sizes, colors, surface finishes, and key dimensions. Although they are not detailed part drawings (known as engineering drawings), they can be used to fabricate final design models and other prototypes. Typically, these drawings or models are given to the engineering team for detailed design of the parts
Coordination with engineering, manufacturing, and external vendors: The industrial designers must continue to work closely with engineering and manufacturing personnel throughout the subsequent product development process. Some industrial design consulting firms offer quite comprehensive product development services, including detailed engineering design and the selection and management of outside vendors of materials, tooling, components, and assembly services

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 10

Industrial design

2009-10-18T14:24:00.003+01:00

The primary mission of industrial design is to design the aspects of a product that relate to the user: aesthetics and ergonomics
Most products can benefit in some way or another from industrial design. The more a product is seen or used by people, the more it will depend on good industrial design for its success
For products that are characterized by a high degree of user interaction and the need for aesthetic appeal, industrial design should be involved throughout the product development process. Early involvement of industrial designers will ensure that critical aesthetic and user requirements will not be overlooked or ignored by the technical staff
When a product's success relies more on technology, industrial design can be integrated into the development process later
Active involvement of industrial design on the product development team can help to promote good communication between functional groups. Such communication facilities coordination and ultimately translates into higher-quality products

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 10

Product Architecture

2009-10-15T21:00:00.002+01:00

Product Architecture is the scheme by which the functional elements of the product are arranged into physical chunks. The architecture of the product is established during the concep development and system-level design phases of development.

Product architecture decisions have far-reaching implications, affecting such things as product change, product variety, component standardization, product performance, manufacturability, and product development management
A key characteristic of a product architecture is the degree to which it is modular or integral
Modular architectures are those in which each physical chunk implements a specific set of functional elements and has well-defined interactions with the other chunks
There are three types of modular architectures: slot-modular, bus-modular, and sectional-modular
Integral architectures are those in which the implementation of functional elements is spread across chunks, resulting in ill-defined interactions between the chunks

A four-step method for establishing the product architecture is explained:

Create a schematic of the product
Cluster the elements of the schematic
Create a rough geometric layout
Identify the fundamental and incidental interactions

This method leads the team through the preliminary architectural decisions. Subsequent system-level and detail design activities will contribute to a continuing evolution of the architectural details
The product architecture can enable postponement, the delayed differentation of the product, which offers substantial potential cost savings
Architectural choices are closely linked to platform planning, the balancing of differentation and commonality when addressing different market segments with differentations of a product
Due to the broad implications of architectural decisions, inputs from marketing, manufacturing, and design are essential in this aspect of product development

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 9

Two examples for concept test

2009-10-12T14:58:00.003+01:00

Example 1: Scooter sold as single-person transportation in large factories

This is an existing category. Assume that scooters are currently sold into this market at a rate of 150,000 units per year (N = 150,000). Assume that the company sells the product through a single distributor that accounts for 25 percent of the sales in this category (A = 0.25). Assume that results from a concept test with factory managers responsible for purchasing transportation devices indicate a definitely-would-buy fraction of 0.30 and probably-would-buy fraction of 0.20. If we use a value of 0.4 for C(definitly) and 0.2 for C(probably), then:

P = 0.4 x 0.30 + 0.2 x 0.20 = 0.16

and

Q = 150,000 x 0.25 x 0.16 = 6,000 units/year

Example 2: Scooter sold to college students

This is a new category and therefore poses a much more difficult estimation challenge. First, what should be the value of N? Strictly speaking (as of this writing) there are very few existing sales of electric scooters to college students. However, we could define N several other ways. For example, how many students purchase bicycles or motor scooters intended for basic transportation of up to two miles. This number is approximately 1 million per year. Alternatively, how many students must travel distances of between one and three miles either in commuting from home or traveling between classes or other school activities. This number is approximately 2 million. Assume that we sample students in this second group, and that we obtain a definitely-would-buy fraction of 0.10 and a probably-would-buy fraction of 0.05. (Note that these numbers represent the fraction of respondents that indicate intent to purchase within one year.) Further assume that the company plans to sell the scooter through bicycle stores near campuses and advertise in campus newspapers, for the 100 largest college campuses in the united states. Based on this plan, the company expects that 30 percent of the students in the target market will be aware of the product and have convenient access to a dealer. If we use a value of 0.4 for C(definitely) and 0.2 for C(probably), then:

P = 0.4 x 0.10 + 0.2 x 0.05 = 0.05

and

Q = 2,000,000 x 0.30 x 0.05 = 30,000 units in the first year

The results of forecasts based on concept testing should be interpreted with caution. Some firms, mostly after repeated experiance with similar products, have achieved impressive levels of accuracy in their forecasts. While forecasts do tend to be correlated with actual sales, most individual forecasts exhibit substantial errors. Some of the factors that can cause actual purchase patterns to differ from the purchase intentions expressed in surveys include:

Importance of word-of-mouth: When the benefits of a product are not immediately obvious, the enthusiasm of existing users may be an important factor in generating demand. This factor is not generally captured in concept testing
Fidelity of the concept description: If the actual product differs substantially from the description of the product in the concept test, then actual sales are likely to differ from the forecast
Pricing: If the price of the product deviates substantially from the price indicated in the survey, or from the expectations of survey respondents, then forecasts are likely to be inaccurate
Level of promotion: Spending on advertising and other forms of promotion can increase demand for most products. The influence of promotion is accounted for only weakly in the forecasting model via the awarness/availability term and via the materials used to present the concept(s).

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 8

Seven-step concept Test method (Part II)

2009-10-12T09:52:00.006+01:00

Step 6: Interpret the results

If the team is simply interested in comparing two or more concepts, interpretation of the results is straightforward. If one concept dominates the others and the team is confident that the respondents understood the key differences among the concepts, then the team can simply choose the preferred concept. If the results are not conclusive, the team may decide to choose a concept based on cost or other considerations, or may decide to offer multiple versions of the product. Note that care must be applied in making this judgment for cases in which manufacturing costs are dramatically different among the concepts under comparison and in which no price information is communicated to the respondents. In such cases, respondents may be biased to select the most costly alternative.

In many cases the team is also intertested in estimating the demand for a product in the period following launch, usually one year. Here a model for estimating the sales potential of durables is presented. By durables we mean products that last several years, and for which there is, therefore, a negligible repeat-purchase rate. These products are in contrast to consumer packaged goods, like razor blades, toothpaste, or frozen food, for which forecasting models must consider rates of trial and subsequent repeat purchase.

Forecasting sales of new products is subject to a great deal of uncertainty and exhibits notoriously high errors. Nevertheless, forecasts do tend to be correlated with actual demand and so provide useful information to the team.

Q = The quantity of the product expected to be sold during a time period, as N is the number of potential customers expected to make purchases during the time period. For an existing and stable product category (e.g., bicycles) N is the expected number of purchases to be made of existing products in the category over the time period. A is the fraction of these potential customers or purchases for which the product is available and the customer is aware of the product. (In situations where awareness and availabality are assumed to be separate independent factors, they are multiplied together to generate A.)

Q = N x A x P

P is the probability that the product is purchased if available and if the customer is aware of it. P is estimated in turn by:

P = C(definitely) x F(definitely) + C(probably) x F(probably)

F(definitely) is the fraction of survey respondents indicating in the concept test survey that they would definitely purchase (top box). F(probably) is the fraction of survey respondents indicating that they would probably purchase (second box).

C(definitely) and C(probably) are calibration constants usually established based on the experiance of a company with similar products in the past. Generally the values of C (d) and C(p) fall in these intervals: C(d) is between 0.10 and 0.50, and C(p) is between 0 and 0.25.

Absent prior history, many teams use values of C(d) = 0.4 and C(p) = 0.2. Note that these values reflect the typical bias of respondents to overestimate the probability that they would actually purchase the product.

Among other possible schemes for estimating P is a function that includes the fraction of respondents in all of the response categories, not just the top two.

For a product associated with an entirely new category (e.g., portable commuter scooters), the interpretation of these variables is slightly different. In this case, N is the number of customers in the target market for the new product, and P is the probability of a target market customer purchasing the product within a given time period, often a year. To clarify the model, two numerical examples corresponding to two different market segments and possible product positionings for the scooter concept are considered in next post.

Step 7: Reflect on the results and the process

The primary benefit of the concept test is in getting feedback from real potential customers. The qualitative insights gathered through open-ended discussions with respondents about the proposed concepts may be the most important result of concept testing, especially early in the development process. The team should reflect on this evidence as well as on the numerical outcome of its forecast.

The team benefits from thinking about the impact of the three key variables in the forecasting model: (1) the overall size of the market, (2) the availability and awareness of the product, and (3) the fraction of customers who are likely to purchase. Considering alternative markets for the product can sometimes increase the first factor. The second factor can be increased through distribution arrangements and promotion plans. The third factor can be increased through changes to the product design (and possibly advertising) that improve the attractiveness of the product. In considering these factors, a sensitivity analysis can yield useful insights and aids in decision making.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 8

Seven-step concept Test method

2009-10-11T23:13:00.005+01:00

Step1: Define the purpose of the concept test

As a first step in concept testing, the team explicitly articulate in writing the questions that the team wishes to answer with the test. Concept testing is essentially an experimental activity, and as with any eperiment, knowing the purpose of the experiment is essential to designing an effective experimental method.

Step 2: Choose a survey population

An assumption underlying the concept test is that the population of potential customers surveyed reflects that of the target market for the product. If the survey population is either more or less enthusiastic about the product than will be the eventual target audience for the product, then influences based on the concept test will be biased. As a result, the team should choose a survey population that mirrors the target market in as many ways as possible. In the actual survey, the first few questions are called the screener questions and generally are used to verify that the respondent fits the definition of the target market for the product.

Step 3: Choose a survey format

The following formats are commonly used in concept testing:

Face-to-face interaction: In this format, an interviewer interacts directly with the respondent. Face-to-face interactions can take the form of intercepts (i.e., stopping people at a mall, in a park, or on a city street), interviews presrranged by telephone, interviews with potential customers at a trade-show booth, or focus groups
Telephone: Telephone interviews may be prearranged and targeted at very specific individuals or may be "cold calls" of consumers from a target population
Postal mail: In mail surveys, concept-testing materials are sent and respondents are asked to return a completed form
Electronic mail: Electronic mail surveys are very similar to postal mail surveys, except that respondents seem slightly more likely to reply than via postal mail
Internet: Using the internet, a team may create a virtual concept-testing site in which survey participants can observe concepts and provide responses

Step 4: Communicate the concept

The choice of survey format is closely linked to the way in which the concpt will be communicated. Concepts can be communicated in any of the following ways, listed in order of increasing richness of the description.

Verbal description: A verbal description is generally a short paragraph or a collection of bullet points summarizing the product concept. This description may be read by the respondent or may be read aloud by the person administering the survey
Sketch: Sketches are usually line drawings showing the product in perspective, perhaps with annotations of key features
Photos and renderings: Photographs can be used to communicate the concept when appearance models exist for the product concept. Renderings are nearly photo-realistic illustrations of the concept
Storyboard: A storyboard is a series of images that communicates a temporal sequence of actions involving the product
Video: Video images allow even more dynamism than the storyboard. With video, the form of the product itself can be clearly communicated, as can the way in which the product is used
Simulation: Simulation is generally implemented as software that mimics the function or interactive features of the product
Interactive multimedia: Interactive multimedia combines the visual richness of video with the interactivity of simulation
Physical appearance models: Physical appearance models, also known as "looks-like" models, vividly display the form and appearance of a product
Working prototypes: When available, working prototypes, or works-like models, can be useful in concept testing

The choice of survey format is tightly linked to the means of communicating the product concept. For example, the team obviously cannot demonstrate the scooter with a working model using a telephone survey.

Issues in communicating the concept:

When communicating the product concept, the team must decide how aggressively to promote the product and its benefits. The scooter could be described as an "electric-powered personal mobility device" or as an "exciting new electric scooter that provides freedom from gridlock." In our view, the description of the concept should closely mirror the information that the user is likely to consider when making a purchase decision. If highly promotional information is used, it can be labeled as a "sample advertisement," perhaps supplemented by mock-ups of "magazine articles" or "comments by current owners" providing additional descriptions of the product.

Step 5: Measure customer response

Most concept test surveys first communicate the product concept and then measure customer response. When a concept test is performed early in the concept development phase, customer response is usually measured by asking the respondent to choose from two or more alternative concepts. Additional questions focus on why respondents react the way they do and on how the product concepts could be improved. Concept tests also generally attempt to measure purchase intent. The most commonly used purchase-intent scale has five response categories:

Definitely would buy
Probably would buy
Might or might not buy
Probably would not buy
Definitely would not buy

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 8

Concept Test

2009-10-11T23:00:00.003+01:00

A concept test solicits a direct response to a description of the product concept from potential customers in the target market. Concept testing is distinct from concept selection in that it is based on data gathered directly from potential customers and relies to a lesser degree on judgments made by the development team.

Concept testing can verify that customer needs have been adequately met by the product concept, assess the sales potential of a product concept, and/or gather customer information for refining the product concept
Concept testing is appropriate at several different points in the development process: when identifying the original product opportunity, when selecting which of two or more concepts should be pursued, when assessing the sales potential of a product concept, and/or when deciding whether to continue further development and commercialization of the product
A seven-step method for testing product concepts:

Define the purpose of the concept test
Choose a survey population
Choose a survey format
Communicate the concept
Measure customer response
Interpret the results
Reflect on the results and the process

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 8

Structured concept selection process

2009-10-11T00:25:00.002+01:00

A structured concept selection process helps to maintain objectivity through out the concept phase of the development process and guides the product development team through a critical, difficult, and sometimes emotional process. Specifically, a structured concept selection method offers the following potential benefits:

A customer-focused product: Because concepts are explicitly evaluated against customer-oriented criteria, the selected concept is likely to be focused on the customer
A competitive design: By benchmarking concepts with respect to existing designs, designers push the design to match or exceed their competitors' performance along key dimensions
Better product-process coordination: Explicit evaluation of the product with respect to manufacturing criteria improves the product's manufacturability and helps to match the product with the process capabilities of the firm
Reduced time to product introduction: A structured method becomes a common language among design engineers, manufacturing engineers, industrial designers, marketers, and project managers, resulting in decreased ambiguity, faster communication, and fewer false starts
Effective group decision making: Within the development team, organizational philosophy and guidelines, willingness of members to participate, and team member experiance may constrain the concept selection process. A structured method encourages decision making based on objective criteria and minimizes the likelihood that arbitrary or personal factors influence the product concept
Documentation of the decision process: A structured method results in a readily understood archive of the rationale behind concept decisions. This record is useful for assimilating new team members and for quickly assessing the impact of changes in the customer needs or in the available alternatives

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 7

Methods for choosing a concept

2009-10-11T00:09:00.003+01:00

The methods vary in their effectiveness and include the following:

External decision: Concepts are turned over to the customer, client, or some other external entity for selection
Product champion: An influential member of the product development team chooses a concept based on personal preference
Intuition: The concept is chosen by its feel. Explicit criteria or trade-offs are not used. The concept just seems better
Multivoting: Each member of the team votes for several concepts. The concept with the most votes is selected
Pros and cons: The team lists the strengths and weaknesses of each concept and makes a choice based upon group opinion
Prototype and test: The organization builds and tests prototypes of each concept, making a selection based upon test data
Decision matrices: The team rates each concept against prespecified selection criteria, which may be weighted

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 7

Concept selection

2009-10-05T23:07:00.003+01:00

Concept selection is the process of evaluating concepts with respect to customer needs and other criteria, comparing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the concepts, and selecting one or more concepts for further investigation or development.

All teams use some method, implicit or explicit, for selecting concepts. Decision techniques employed for selecting concepts range from intuitive approaches to structured methods
Successful design is facilitated by structured concept selection which consists of two-stage process: concept screening and concept scoring
Concept screening uses a reference concept to evaluate concept variants against selection criteria. Concept scoring may use different reference points for each criterion
Concept screening uses a coarse comparison system to narrow the range of concepts under consideration
Concept scoring uses weighted selection criteria and a finer rating scale. Concept scoring may be skipped if concept screening produces a dominant concept
Both screening and scoring use a matrix as the basis of a six-step selection process. The six steps are:

Prepare the selection matrix
Rate the concepts
Rank the concepts
Combine and improve the concepts
Select one or more concepts
Reflect on the results and the process

Concept selection is applied not only during concept development but throughout the subsequent design and development process
Concept selection is a group process that facilitates the selection of a winning concept, helps build team consensus, and creates a record of the decision-making process

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 7

Concept Classification Tree

2009-10-04T00:33:00.003+01:00

The concept classification tree is used to divide the entire space of possible solutions into several distinct classes which will facilitate comparison and pruning. The classification tree provides at least four important benefits:

Pruning of less promising branches: If by studying the classification tree the team is able to identify a solution approach that does not appear to have much merit, then this approach can be pruned and the team can focus its attention on the more promising branches of the tree
Identification of independent approaches to the problem: Each branch of the tree can be considered a different approach to solving the overall problem. Some of these approaches may be almost completely independent of each other. In these cases, the team can cleanly divide its efforts among two or more individuals or task forces. When two approaches both look promising, this division of effort can reduce the complexity of the concept generation activities
Exposure of inappropriate emphasis on certain branches: Once the tree is constructed, the team is able to reflect quickly on whether the effort applied to each branch has been appropriately allocated. The nailer team recognized that they had applied very little effort to thinking about hydraulic energy sources and conversion technologies
Refinement of the problem decomposition for a particular branch: Sometimes a problem decomposition can be usefully tailored to a particular approach to the problem

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 6

Hints for generating solution concepts

2009-10-03T22:42:00.004+01:00

Experienced individuals and teams can usually just sit down and begin generating good concepts for a subproblem. Often these people have developed a set of techniques they use to stimulate their thinking, and these techniques have become a natural part of thier problem-solving process.

Here are some hints for generating solution concepts:

Make analogies: Experienced designers always ask themselves what other devices solve a related problem. Frequently they will ask themselves if there is a natural or biological analogy to the problem. They will think about whether thier problem exists at a much larger or smaller dimensional scale than that which they are considering
Wish and wonder: Beginning a thought or comment with "I wish we could . . ." or "I wonder what would happen if . . ." helps to stimulate oneself or the group to consider new possibilities. These questions cause reflection on the boundaries of the problem
Use related stimuli: Most individuals can think of a new idea when presented with a new stimulus. Related stimuli are those stimuli generated in the context of the problem at hand. For example, one way to use related stimuli is for each individual in a group session to generate a list of ideas (working alone) and then pass the list to his or her neighbor. Upon reflection on someone else's ideas, most people are able to generate new ideas. Other related stimuli include customer needs statements and photographs of the use environment of the product
Use unrelated stimuli: Occasionally, random or unrelated stimuli can be effective in encouraging new ideas. An example of such a technique is to choose, at random, one of a collection of photographs of objects, and then to think of some way that the randomly generated object might relate to the problem at hand. In a variant of this idea, individuals can be sent out on the streets with a digital camera to capture random images for subsequent use in stimulating new ideas
Set quantitative goals: Generating new ideas can be exhausting. Near the end of a session, individuals and groups may find quantitative goals useful as a motivating force
Use the gallery method: The gallery method is a way to display a large number of concepts simultaneously for discussion. Sketches, usually one concept to a sheet, are taped or pinned to the walls of the meeting room. Team members circulate and look at each concept. The creator of the concept may offer explanation, and the group subsequently makes suggestions for improving the concept or spontaneously generates related concepts. This method is a good way to merge individual and group efforts

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 6

Concept Generation

2009-10-03T16:51:00.004+01:00

A product concept is an approximate description of the technology, working pronciples, and form of the product. The degree to which a product satisfies customers and can be successfully commercialized depends to a large measure on the quality of the underlying concept.

The concept generation process begins with a set of customer needs and target specifications and results in a set of product concepts from which the team will make a final selection
A concept is usually expressed as a sketch or as a rough three-dimensional modeland is often accompanied by a brief textual description
In most cases, an effective development team will generate hundreds of concepts, of which 5 to 20 will merit serious consideration during the subsequent concept selection activity

The concept generation method consists of five steps:

Clarify the problem: Understand the problem and decompose it into simpler sub-problems (problem decomposition). The mission statement for the project, the customer needs list, and the preliminary product specification are the ideal inputs to the concept generation process.
Search externally: Gather information from lead users (Interview lead users), consult experts, Search patents, published literature (journals, conference proceedings, trade magazines, government reports, market, consumer, and product information), Benchmark related products (useful sources: Thomas register of american manufacturers), and related products
Search internally: Use individual and group methods to retrieve and adapt the knowledge of the team. This activity may be the most open-ended and creative of any in new-product development. This process can be carried out by individuals working in isolation or by a group of people working together. Four guidelines are useful for improving both individual and group internal search: 1. Suspend judgment 2. Generate a lot of ideas 3. Welcome ideas that may seem infeasible 4. Use graphical and phisical media (Sketches, foam, clay, cardboard, and other three-dimensional media)
Explore systematically: Use classification trees and combination tables to organize the thinking of the team and to synthesize solution fragments
Reflect on the solution and the process: Identify opportunities for improvement in subsequent iterations or future projects

Although concept generation is an inherently creative process, teams can benefit from using a structured method. Such an approach allows full exploration of the design space and reduces the chance of oversight in the types of solution concepts considered. It also acts as a map for those team members who are less experienced in design problem solving
Despite the linear presentation of the concept generation process, the team will likely return to each step of the process several times. Iteration is particularly common when the team is developing a radically new product
Professionals who are good at concept generation seem to always be in great demand as team members. Contrary to popular opinion, concept generation is a skill that can be learned and developed

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 6

TRIZ

2009-10-03T10:03:00.002+01:00

In the 1990s, a russian problem-solving methodology called TRIZ (a Russian acronym for theory of inventive problem solving) began to be disseminated in Europe and in the United States. The methodology is primarily useful in identifying physical working principles to solve technical problems. The key idea underlying TRIZ is to identify a contradiction that is implicit in a problem. For example, a contradiction in the nailer problem might be that increasing power (a desirable characteristic) would also tend to increase weight (an undesirable characteristic). One of the TRIZ tools is a matrix of 39 by 39 characteristics with each cell corresponding to a particular conflict between two characteristics. In each cell of the matrix, up to four physical principles are suggested as ways of resolving the corresponding conflict. There are 40 basic principles, including, for example, the periodic action principle (i.e., replace a continuous action with a periodic action, like an impulse). Using TRIZ, the nailer team might have arrived at the concept of using repeated smaller impacts to drive the nail. The idea of identifying a conflict in the design problem and then thinking about ways to resolve the conflict appears to be a very useful problem-solving heuristic. This approach can be useful in generating concepts even without adopting the entire TRIZ methodology.

Target costing

2009-09-30T23:11:00.005+01:00

Target costing is a simple idea: set the value of the manufacturing cost specification based on the price the company hopes the end user will pay for the product and on the profit margins that are required for each stage in the distribution channel. For example, assume specialized wishes to sell its suspension fork to its customers through bicycle shops. If the price it expected the customer to pay was $250 and if bicycle shops normally expect a gross profit margin of 45 percent on components, then specialized would have to sell its fork to bicycle shops for (1-0.45).250 = $137.50. If specialized wishes to earn a gross margin of at least 40 percent on its components, then its unit manufacturing cost must be less than (1-0.40).137.50=$82.50.

Let M be the gross profit margin of a stage in the distribution channel.
M = (P - C)/P

Where P is the price this stage charges its customers and C is the cost this stage pays for the product it sells.

Target cost, C, is given by the following expression:

Where P is the price paid by the end user, n is the number of stages in the distribution channel, and Mi is the margin of the ith stage.

Example:

Assume the end user price, P, equals $250. If the product is sold directly to the end user by the manufacture, and the desired gross profit margin of the manufacturer, Mm, equals 0.40, then the target cost is:

C = P(1 - Mm) = $250(1 - 0.40) = $150

If the product is sold through a retailer, and the desired gross profit margin for the retailer, Mr, equals 0.45, then:

C = P(1 - Mm)(1 - Mr)

= $250(1 - 0.40)(1 - 0.45) = $82.50

If the product is sold through a distributor and a retailer, and the desired gross profit margin for the distributer, Md, equals 0.20, then:

C = P(1 - Mm)(1 - Md)(1 - Mr) = $250(1 - 0.40)(1 - 0.20)(1 - 0.45) = $66.00

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 5

Establishing the final specifications

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As the team finalizes the choice of a concept and prepares for subsequent design and development, the specifications are revisited. Specifications which originally were only targets expressed as broad ranges of values are now refined and made more precise. Finalizing the specifications is difficult because of trade-offs, inverse relationships between two specifications that are inherent in the selected product concept. Trade-offs frequently occur between different technical performance metrics and almost always occur between technical performance metrics and cost. The diificult part of refining the specifications is choosing how such trade-offs will be resolved.

The process of establishing the final specifications contains five steps:

Step 1: Develop technical models of the product

A technical model of the product is a tool for predicting the values of the metrics for a particular set of design decisions. The term models is referred to both analytical and physical approximations of the product. Such models can be used to predict the product's performance along a number of dimensions. The inputs to these models are the independent design variables associated with the product concept such as oil viscosity, orifice diameter, spring constant, and geometry. The outputs of the model are the values of the metrics, such as attenuation, stiffness, and fatigue life.

Step 2: Develop a cost model of the product

The goal of this step of theprocess is to make sure that the product can be produced at the target cost. The target cost is the manufacturing cost at which the company and its distribution partners can make adequate profits while still ffering the product to the end customer at a competitive price. For most products, the first estimates of manufacturing costs are completed by drafting a bill of materials and estimating a purchase price or fabrication cost for each part. While early estimates generally focus on the cost of components, the team will usually make a rough estimate of assembly and other manufacturing costs (overhead) at this point as well. The bill of materials is typically used iteratively: the team performs a "what if" cost analysis for a set of design decisions and then revises these decisions based on what it learns. The bill of materials is itself a kind of performance model, but instead of predicting the value of a technical performance metric, it predicts cost performance. The bill of materials remains useful throughout the development process and is updated regularly (as frequently as once each week) to reflect the current status of the estimated manufacturing cost.

Step 3: Refine the specifications, making trade-offs where necessary

Once the team has constructed technical performance models where possible and constructed a preliminary cost model, these tools can be used to develop final specifications. Finalizing specifications can be accomplished in a group session in which feasible combinations of values are determined through the use of the technical models and then the cost implications are explored. In an iterative fashion, the team converges on the specifications which will most favorably position the product relative to the competition, will best satisfy the customer needs, and will ensure adequate profits.

One important tool for supporting this decision-making process is the competitive map. This map is simply a scatter plot of the competitive products along two dimensions selected from the set of metrics and is sometimes called a trade-off map.

Step 4: Flow down the specifications as appropriate

Establishing specifications takes on additional importance and is substantially more challenging when developing a highly complex product consisting of multiple subsystems designed by multiple development teams. In such a context, specifications are used to define the development objectives of each of the subsystems as well as for the product as a whole.The challenge in this case is to flow down the overall specifications to specifications for each subsystem.

Step 5: Reflect on the results and the process

As always, the final step in the method is to reflect on the outcome and the process.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 5

Establishing Target Specifications

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The target specifications are established after the customer needs have been identified but before product concepts have been generated and the most promising one(s) selected.

The process of establishing the target specifications contains four steps:

Step1: Prepare the list of metrics

The most useful metrics are those that reflect as directly as possible the degree to which the product satisfies the customer needs. The relationship between needs and metrics is central to the entire concept of specifications. A simple needs-metrics matrix represents the relationship between needs and metrics. This matrix is a key element of the House of Quality, a graphical technique used in Quality Function Deployment, or QFD. A few guidelines should be considered when constructing the list of metrics:

Metrics should be complete
Metrics should be dependent, not independent, variables
Metrics should be practical
Some needs cannot easily be translated into quantifiable metrics
The metrics should include the popular criteria for comparison in the marketplace

Step 2: Collect competitive benchmarking information

Unless the team expects to enjoy a total monopoly, the relationship of the new product to competitive products is paramount in determining commercial success. While the team will have entered the product development process with some idea of how it wishes to compete in the marketplace, the target specifications are the language the team uses to discuss and agree on the detailed positioning of its product relative to existing products, both its own and competitors. The competitive benchmarking chart can be constructed as a simple appendage to the spreadsheet containing the list of metrics. (This information is one of the "rooms" in the House of Quality).

Step 3: Set ideal and marginally acceptable target values

In this step, the team synthesizes the available information in order to actually set the target values for the metrics. Two types of target value are useful: an ideal value and a marginally acceptable value. The ideal value is the best result the team could hope for. The marginally acceptable value is the value of the metric that would just barely make the product commercially viable. Both of these targets are useful in guiding the subsequent stages of concept generation and concept selection, and for refining the specifications after the product concept has been selected.

There are five ways to express the values of the metrics:

At least X: These specifications establish targets for the lower bound on a metric
At most X: These specifications establish targets for the upper bound on a metric
Between X and Y: These specifications establish both upper and lower bounds for the value of a metric
Exactly X: These specifications establish a taget f a particular value of a metric, with any deviation degrading performance
A set of discrete values: Some metrics will have values corresponding to several discrete choices

Step 4: Reflect on the results and the process

The team may require some iteration to agree on the targets. Reflection after each iteration helps to ensure that the results are consistent with the goals of the project.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 5

Sample of Mission statement for the cordless screwdriver

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Product Description: A hand-held, power-assisted device for installing threaded fasteners.

Benefit Proposition: Drives screws more quickly and with less effort than by hand

Key Business Goals: Product introduced in fourth quarter of 2006 - 50% gross margin - 10% share of cordless screwdriver market by 2008

Primary Market: Do - it - yourself consumer

Secondary Markets: Casual consumer - Light-duty professional

Assumptions: Hand-held - Power-assisted - Nickel-metal-hydride rechargeable battery technology

Stakeholders: User - Retailer - Sales force - Service center - Production - Legal department

What are specifications?

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Customer needs are generally expressed in the "language of the customer."Customer needs such as "the suspension is easy to install" or "the suspension enables high-speed descents on bumpy trails" are typical in terms of the subjective quality of the expressions. While such expressions are helpful in developing a clear sense of the issues of interest to customers, they provide little specific guidance about how to design and engineer the product. They simply leave too much margin for subjective interpretation. For this reason, development teams usually establish a set of specifications, which spell out in precise, measurable detail what the product has to do. Product specifications do not tell the team how to address the customer needs, but they do represent an unambiguous agreement on what the team will attempt to achieve in order to satisfy the customer needs. For example, in contrast to the customer need that "the suspension is easy to install," the corresponding specification might be that "the average time to assemble the fork to the frame is less than 75 seconds. The term product specifications means the precise description of what the product has to do. Other terms include: product requirements, engineering characteristics, specifications, or technical specifications.

A specification consists of a metric and a value. For example, "average time to assemble" is a metric, while "less than 75 seconds" is the value of this metric.

The target specifications are set early in the process, but setting the final specifications must wait until after the product concept has been selected.

Traget specifications represent the hopes and aspirations of the team, but they are established before the team knows the constraints the product technology will place on what can be achieved. The team's effort may fail to meet some of these specifications and may exceed others, depending on the details of the product concept the team eventually selects.

Final specifications are developed by assessing the actual technological constraint and the expected production costs using analytical and physical models. During this refinement phase the team must make difficult trade-offs among various desirable characteristics of the product.

The specifications process is facilitated by several simple information systems which can easily be created using conventional spreadsheet software. Tools such as the list of metrics, the needs-metrics matrix, the competitive benchmarking charts, and the competitive maps all support the team's decision making by providing the team with a way to represent and discuss the specifications.

Because of the need to utilize the best possible knowledge of the market, the customers, the core product technology, and the cost implications of design alternatives, the specifications process requires active participation from team members representing the marketing, design, and manufacturing functions of the enterprise.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 5

Identifying Customer Needs

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Identifying customer needs is an integral part of the concept development phase of the product development process. The resulting customer needs are used to guide the team in establishing product specifications, generating product concepts, and selecting a product concet for further development.

The process of identifying customer needs includes five steps:

Gather raw data from customers: Gathering data involves contact with customers and experiance with the use environment of the product. Three methods are commonly used: Interviews, Focus groups, and Obseving the product in use. This step consists of choosing customers, the art of eliciting customer needs data, and documenting interactions with customers.
Interpret raw data in terms of customer needs: Customer needs are expressed as written statements and are the result of interpreting the need underlying the raw data gathered from the customers. There are five guidelines for writing need statements: 1. Express the need in terms of what the product has to do, not in terms of how it might do it 2. Express the need as specifically as the raw data 3. Use positive, not negative, phrasing 4. Express the need as an attribute of the product 5. Avoid the words must and should. The list of customer needs is the superset of all the needs elicited from all the interviewed customers in the target market.
Organize the needs into a hierarchy: The result of steps 1 and 2 should be a list of 50 to 300 need statements. Such a large number of detailed needs is awkward to work with and difficult to summarize for use in subsequent development activities. The goal of this step is to organize these needs into a hierarchical list. The list will typically consist of a set of primary needs, each one of which will be further characterized by a set of secondary needs. In cases of very complex products, the secondary needs may be broken down into tertiary needs as well. The procedure for organizing the needs into a hierarchical list is intuitive, and many teams can successfully complete the task without detailed instructions. For completeness, a step-by-step procedure is provided. This activity is best performed on a wall or a large table by a small group of team members: 1. Print or write each need statement on a separate card or self-stick note 2. Eliminate redundant statements 3. Group the cards according to the similarity of the needs they express 4. For each group, choose a label 5. Consider creating supergroups consisting of two to five groups 6. Review and edit the organized needs statements.
Establish the relative importance of the needs: The hierarchical list alone does not provide any information on the relative importance that customers place on different needs. This step establishes the relative importance of the customer needs identified in steps 1 through 3. The outcome of this step is a numerical importance weighting for a subset of the needs. There are two basic approaches to the task: (1) relying on the consensus of the team members based on their experiance with customers, or (2) basing the importance assessment on further customer surveys.
Reflect on the results and the process: The final step in the method is to reflect on the results and the process. While the process of identifying customer needs can be usefully structured, it is not an exact science. The team must challenge its results to verify that they are consistent with the knowledge and intuition the team has developed through many hours of interaction with customers.

1. Creating a high-quality information channel from customers to the product developers ensures that those who directly control the details of the product, including the product designers, fully understand the needs of the customer.

2. Lead users are a good source of customer needs because they experiance new needs months or years ahead of most customers and because they stand to benefit substantially from new product innovations. Furthermore, they are frequently able to articulate their needs more clearly than typical customers. Extreme users have special needs which may reflect latent needs among mainstream users.

3. Latent needs may be even more important than explicit needs in determining customer satisfaction. Latent needs are those that many customers recognize as important in a final product but do not or can not articulate in advance.

4. Customer needs should be expressed in terms of what the product has to do, not in terms of how the product might be implemented. Adherence to this principle leaves the development team with maximum flexibility to generate and select product concepts.

5. The key benefits of the method are: ensuring that the product is focused on customer needs and that no critical customer need is forgotten; developing a clear understanding among members of the development team of the needs of the customers in the target market; developing a fact base to be used in generating concepts, selecting a product concept, and establishing product specifications; and creating an archival record of the needs phase of the development process.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, Chapter 4

Product Planning Process

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Product planning and project mission statements consists of five-step process:

Identify opportunities: The planning begins with the identification of product development opportunities. Such opportunities may involve any of the four types of projects defined in previous post. This step can be thought of as the opportunity funnel because it brings together inputs from across the enterprise. Ideas for new products or features of products may come from several sources, such as: Marketing and sales personnel, Research and technology development organizations, Current product development teams, Manufacturing and operations organizations, Current or potential customers, Third parties such as suppliers, inventors, and business partners. When employed actively, the opportunity funnel collects ideas continuously, and new product opportunities may arise at any time. As a way of tracking, sorting, and refining these opportunities, can be described in a short, coherent statement and that this information be collected in a database. This database can be as simple as a list in a spreadsheet.
Evaluate and Prioritize Projects: If managed actively, the opportunity funnel can collect hundreds or even thousands of opportunities during a year. Some of these opportunities do not make sense in the context of the firm's other activities, and in most cases, there are simply too many opportunities for the firm to pursue at once. The second step in the product planning process is therefore to select the most promising projects to pursue. Four basic perspectives are useful in evaluating and prioritizing opportunities for new products in existing product categories: competitive strategy, market segmentation, technological trajectories, and product platforms.
Allocate Resources and Plan Timing: It is likely that the firm cannot afford to invest in every product development opportunity in its desired balanced portfolio of projects. As timing and resource allocation are determined for the most promising projects, too many projects will invariably compete for too few resources. As a result, the attempt to assign resources and plan timing almost always results in a return to the prior evaluation and prioritization step to prune the set of projects to be pursued. Many organizations take on too many projects without regard for the limited availability of development resources. As a result, skilled engineers and managers are assigned to more and more projects, productivity drops off dramatically, projects take longer to complete, products become late to the market, and profits are lower. Aggregate planning helps an organization make efficient use of its resources by pursuing only those projects that can reasonably be completed with the budgeted resources. Determining the timing and sequene of projects, sometimes called pipeline management, must consider a number of factors, including: Timing of product introduction, Technology readiness, Market readiness, Competition.
Complete Pre-Project Planning: Once the project has been approved, but before substantial resources are applied, a pre-project planning activity takes place. This ctivity involves a small, cross-functional team of people, often known as the core team. At this point, the earlier opportunity statement may be rewritten as a product vision statement. The objective defined by a product vision statement may be very general, It may not say which specific new technologies should be used, nor does it necessarily specify the goals and constraints of functions such as production and service operations. In order to provide clear guidance for the product development organization, generally the team formulates a more detailed definition of the target market and of the assumptions under which the development team will operate. These decisions are captured in a mission statement.
Mission Statements: The mission statement may include some or all of the following information:

Brief (one-sentence) description of the product: This description identifies the basic function of the product but avoids implying a specific product concept. It may, in fact, be the product vision statement.

Benefit proposition: This element of the mission statement articulates the critical few reasons a customer would buy the product. To some extent this is a hypothesis, which will be validated dring the concept development process.

Key business goals: In addition to the project goals which support the corporate strategy, these goals generally include goals for time, cost, and quality (e.g., timing of the product introduction, desired financial performance, market shar targets).

Target market(s) for the product: There may be several target markets for the product. Thispart of the mission statement identifies the primary market as well as any secondary markets that should be considered in the development effort.

Assumptions and constraints that guide the development effort: Assumptions must be made carefully; although they restrict the range of possible product concepts, they help to maintain a manageable project scope. Information may be attached to the mission statement to document decisions about assumptions and constraints.

Stakeholders: One way to ensure that many of the subtle development issues are addressed is to explicitly list all of the product's stakeholders, that is, all of the groups of people who are affected by the product's success or failure. The stakeholder list begins with the end user (the ultimate external customer) and the external customer who makes the buying decision about the product. Stakeolders also include the customers of the product who reside within the firm, such as the sales force, the service organization, and the production departments. The list of stakeholders serves as a reminder for the team to consider the needs of everyone who will influenced by the product.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, page: 37

Types of Product Development Projects

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Product development projects can be classified as four types:

New product platforms: This type of project involves a major development effort to create a new family of products based on a new, common platform. The new product family would address familiar markets and product categories. The Xerox Lakes project, aimed at the development of a new, digital copier platform, is an example of this type of project.
Derivatives of existing product platforms: These projects extend an existing product platform to better address familiar markets with one or more new products. To develop a new copier basec on an existing light-lens (not digital) product platform would be an example of this type of project.
Incremental improvements to exisiting products: These projects may only involve adding or modifying some features of existing products in order to keep the product line current and competitive. A slight change to remedy minor flaws in an existing copier product would be an example of this type of project.
Fundamentally new products: These projects involve radically different product or production technologies and may help to address new and unfamiliar markets. Such projects inherently involve more risk; however, the long-term success of the enterprise may depend on what is learned through these important projects. The first digital copier Xerox developed is an example of this type of project.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, page: 36

Product Development Organizations

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Successful firms must organize their product development staffs effectively. In this section, we describe several types of organizations used for product development.

Organizations Are Formed by Establishing Links among Individuals:

A product development organization is the scheme by which individual designers and developers are linked together into groups. The links among individuals may be formal or informal and include, among others, these types:

Reporting relationships: Reporting relationships give rise to the classic notion of supervisor and subordinate. These are the formal links most frequently shown on an organization chart.
Financial arrangements: Individuals are linked by being part of the same financial entity, such as that defined by a particular budget category or profit-and-loss statement.
Physical layout: Links are created between individuals when they share the same office, floor, building, or site. These links are often informal, arising from spontaneous encounters while at work.

Any particular individual may be linked in several different ways to other individuals. For example, an engineer may be linked by a reporting relationship to another engineer in a different building, while being linked by physical layout to a marketing person sitting in the next office. The strongest organizational links are typically those involving performance evaluation, budgets, and other resource allocations.

Organizationl Links May Be Aligned with Functions, Projects, or Both:

Regardless of their organizational links, particular individuals can be classified in two different ways: according to their function and according to the projects they work on.

A function (in organizational terms) is an area of responsibility usually involving specialized education, training, or experiance. The classic functions in product development organizations are marketing, design, and manufacturing. Finer divisions than these are also possible and may include, for example, market research, market strategy, stress analysis, inductrial design, human factors engineering, process development, and operations management.
Regardless of their functions, individuals apply their expertise to specific projects. In product development, a project is the set of activities in the development process for a particular product and includes, for example, identifying customer needs and generating product concepts.

Note that these two classifications must overlap: individuals from several different functions will work on the same project. Also, while most individuals are associated with only one function, they may contribute to more than one project. Two classic organizational structures arise from aligning the organizational links according to function or according to projects. In functional organizations, the organizational links are primarily among those who perform similar functions. In project organizations, the organizational links are primarily among those who work on the same project.

A strict project organization would be made up of groups of people from several different functions, with each group focused on the development of a specific product (or product line).

The matrix organization was conceived as a hybrid of functional and project organizations. In the matrix organization, individuals are linked to others according to both the project they work on and their function. Typically each individual has two supervisors, one a project manager and one a functional manager. Two variants of the matrix organization are called the heavyweight project organization and lightweight project organization. A heavyweight project organization contains strong project links. The heavyweight project manager has complete budget authority, is heavily involved in performance evaluation of the team members, and makes most of the major resource allocation decisions. Although each participant in a project also belongs to a functional organization, the functional managers have relatively little authority and control. A heavyweight project team in various industries may be called an integrated product team (IPT), a design-build team (DBT), or simply a product development team (PDT). Each of these terms emphasizes the cross-functional nature of these teams. The project team is considered as the primary organizational unit. The team is the set of all people involved in the project, regardless of the organizational structure of the product development staff. The notion of a team has much more meaning in matrix and project organizations than it does in functional organizations.

The most appropriate choice of organizational structure depends on which organizational performance factors are most critical to success. Functional organizations tend to breed specialization and deep expertise in the functional areas. Project organizations tend to enable rapid and effective coordination among diverse functions. Matrix organizations, being hybrids, have the potential to exhibit some of each of these characteristics.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, page: 23

Variants of generic product development process

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Summary of variants of generic product development process are outlined as following:

Market pull products: A firm begins product development with a market opportunity and then whatever available technologies are required to satisfy the market need (The market pulls the development decisions). Process generally includes distinct planning, concept development, system-level design, detail design, testing and refinement, and production ramp-up phases. Examples: sporting goods, furniture, tools.
Technology push products: The team begins with a new technology, then finds an appropriate market. Planning phase involves matching technology and market. Concept development assumes a given technology. Gore-Tex rainwear, Tyvek envelopes.
Platform products: The team assumes that the new product will be built around an established technological subsystem. A platform product is built around a preexisting subsystem (a technology platform). Technology platform has already demonstrated its usefulness in the marketplace in meeting customer needs. Concept development assumes a proven technology platform. Examples: consumer electronics, computers, printers.
Process-Intensive products: Characteristics of the product are highly constrained by the production process. In many cases, process-intensive products are produced in very high volumes and are bulk, as opposed to discrete, goods. Either an existing production process must be specified from the start, or both product and process must be developed together from the start. Examples: Snack foods, breakfast cereals, chemicals, semiconductors.
Customized products: Customized products are slight variations of standard configurations and are typically developed in response to a specific order by a customer. When a customer request a new product, the firm executes a structured design and development process to create the product to meet the customer's needs. Such firms typically have created a highly detailed development process involving a well-defined sequence of steps with a structured flow of information (analogous to a production process). Similarity of projects allows for a streamlined and highly structured development process. Examples: motors, switches, batteries, containers.
High-Risk products: Technical or market uncertainties create high risks of failure. Risks are identified early and tracked throughout the process. Analysis and testing activities take place as early as possible. Examples: Pharmaceuticals, space systems.
Quick-Build products: For the development of some products, such as software and many electronics products, building and testing prototype models has become such a rapid process that the design-build-test cycle can be repeated many times. In fact, teams can take advantage of rapid iteration to achieve a more flexible and responsive product development process, sometimes called a spiral product development process. Detail design and testing phases are repeated a number of times until the product is completed or time/budget runs out. Examples: Software, cellular phones.
Complex system: Larger-scale products such as automobiles and airplanes are complex systems comprised of many interacting subsystems and components. When developing complex systems, modifications to the generic product development process address a number of system-level issues. The concept development phase considers the architecture of the entire system. The system-level design phase becomes critical. During this phase, the system is decomposed into subsystems and these further into many components. Teams are assigned to develop each component. Subsystems and components are developed by many teams working in parallel, followed by system integration and validation. Examples: Airplanes, jet engines, automobiles.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, page: 18

The concept development process

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The concept development process includes the following activities:

Identifying customer needs: The goal of this activity is to understand customers' needs and to effectively communicate them to the development team. The output of this step is a set of carefully customer need statements, organized in a hierarchical list, with importance weightings for many or all of the needs.

Establishing target specifications: Specifications provide a precise description of what a product has to do. They are the translation of the customer needs into technical terms. Targets for the specifications are set early in the process and represent the hopes of the development team. Later these specifications are refined to be consistent with the constraints imposed by the team's choice of a product concept. The output of this stage is a list of target specifications. Each specification consists of a metric, and marginal and ideal values for that metric.

Concept generation: The goal of concept generation is to thoroughly explore the space of product concepts that may address the customer needs. Concept generation includes a mix of external search, creative problem solving within the team, and systematic exploration of the various solution fragments the team generates. The result of this activity is usually a set of 10 to 20 concepts, each typically represented by a sketch and brief descriptive text.

Concept selection: Concept selection is the activity in which various product concepts are analyzed and sequentially eliminated to identify the most promising concept(s).The process usually requires several iterations and may initiate additional concept generation and refinement.

Concept testing: One or more concepts are then tested to verify that the customer needs have been met, assess the market potential of the product, and identify any shortcomings which must be remedied during further development. If the customer response is poor, the development project may be terminated or some earlier activities may be repeated as necessary.

Setting final specifications: The target specifications set earlier in the process are revisited after a concept has been selected and tested. At this point, the team must commit to specific values of the metrics reflecting the constraints inherent in the product concept, limitations identified through technical modeling, and trade-offs between cost and performance.

Project planning: In this final activity of concept development, the team creates a detailed development schedule, devises a strategy to minimize development time, and identifies the resources required to complete the project. The major results of the front-end activities can be usefully captured in a contract book which contains the mission statement, the customer needs, the details of the selected concept, the product specifications, the economic analysis of the product, the development schedule, the project staffing, and the budget. The contract book serves to document the agreement (contract) between the team and the senior management of the enterprise.

Economic analysis: The team, often with the support of a financial analyst, builds an economic model for the new product. This model is used to justify continuation of the overall development program and to resolve specific trade-offs among, for example, development costs and manufactring costs. Economic analysis id shown as one of the ongoing activities in the concept development phase. An early economic analysis will almost always be performed before the project even begins, and this analysis is updated as more information becomes available.

Benchmarking of competitive products: An understanding of competitive products is critical to successful positioning of a new product and can provide a rich source of ideas for the product and production process design. Competitive benchmarking is performed in support of many of the front-end activities.

Modeling and prototyping: Every stage of the concept development process involves various forms of models and prototypes. These may include, among others: early "proof-of-concept" models, which help the development team to demonstrate feasibility; "form-only" models, which can be shown to customers to evaluate ergonomics and style; spreadsheet models of technical trade-offs; and experimental test models, which van be used to set design parameters for robust performance.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, page: 16

Phases of generic product development process

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The six phases of the generic product development process are:

0. Planning: The planning activity is often reffered to as "phase zero" since it precedes the project approval and launch of the actual product development process. This phase begins with corporate strategy and includes assessment of technology developments and market objectives. The output of the planning phase is the project mission statement, which specifies the target market for the product, business goals, key assumptions, and constraints.

1. Concept development: In the concept development phase, the needs of the target market are identified, alternative product concepts are generated and evaluated, and one or more concepts are selected for further development and testing. A concept is a description of the form, function, and features of a product and is usually accompanied by a set of specifications, an analysis of competitive products, and an economic justification of the project.

2. System-level design: The system-level design phase includes the definition of the product architecture and the decomposition of the product into subsystems and components. The final assembly scheme for the production system is usually defined during this phase as well. The output of this phase usually includes a geometric layout of the product, a functional specification of each of the product's subsystems, and a preliminary process flow diagram for the final assembly process.

3. Detail design: The detail design phase includes the complete specification of the geometry, materials, and tolerances of all of the unique parts in the product and the identification of all of the standard parts to be purchased from suppliers. A process plan is established and tooling is designed for each part to be fabricated within the production system. The output of this phase is the control documentation for the product - the drawings or computer files describing the geometry of each part and its production tooling, the specifications of the purchased parts, and the process plans for the fabrication and assembly of the product. Two critical issues addressed in the detail design phase are production cost and robust performance.

4. Testing and refinement: The testing and refinement phase involves the construction and evaluation of multiple preproduction versions of the product. Early (alpha) prototypes are usually built with production-intent parts - parts with the same geometry and material properties as intended for the production version of the product but not necessarily fabricated with the actual processes to be used in production. Alpha prototypes are tested to determine whether the product will work as designed and whether the product satisfies the key customer needs. Later (beta) prototypes are usually built with parts supplied by the intended production processes but may not be assembled using the intended final assembly process. Beta protitypes are extensively evaluated internally and are also typically tested by customers in their own use environment. The goal for the beta prototypes is usually to answer questions about performance and reliability in order to identify necessary engineering changes for the final product.

5. Production ramp-up: In the production ramp-up phase, the product is made using the intended production system. The purpose of the ramp-up is to train the work force and to work out any remaining problems in the production processes. Product produced during production ramp-up are sometimes supplied to preferred customers and are carefully evaluated to identify any remaining flaws. The transition from production ramp-up to ongoing production is usually gradual. At some point in this transition, the product is launched and becomes available for widespread distribution.

Ref: Product Design and Development, By Karl T. Ulrich & Steven D. Eppinger, page: 13

Folding Trailer

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AJS Motorbike converted to See-Saw

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Pizza Pan Cleaner

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MP3 Player Animation - Part II

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MP3 Player Animation - Part I

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Animation of gear mechanism

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Animation of Cordless Hammer Drill Mechanism

2009-05-08T16:14:00.004+01:00

Main Assembly Animation in SolidWorks

2009-05-08T16:09:00.002+01:00

Animating Assembly in SolidWorks

2009-04-16T01:40:00.015+01:00

Step 1:

Open your assembly in SolidWorks. then right-click in configuration Manager tab (Figure 1). and click on New Exploded view...

Figure 1

Step 2:

Explode your assembly (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Step 3:
Expand Default[ Assembly]. Then Right-click ExplView1. and click on Animate collapse (Figure 3). The Animation Controller will appear. and all the parts will start to assemble (Figure 4).

Figure 3

Figure 4

Step 4:
You can save your animation as AVI by clicking on Save option in Animation Controller (Figure 5).

Figure 5
I have uploaded the video clip (avi format) of the assembly explained above, to the next post.

Defining a project - Part II

2009-02-19T22:32:00.003Z

Introduction
This assignment requires that you define and specify a project. You are soon be asked by your final year project module leader to draw up a project specification that will later has to be agreed by your supervisor in the University in order to form your final year degree project specification. This assignment thus provides an opportunity for you to practice writing project specification.
Your project specification must, as a minimum, answer the following questions:

WHAT is the project setting out to do. You should identify a small number (typically three or four) specific objectives that you will achieve if the project is a success.
WHY the project is needed. This is typically a brief description of the background to the project, what a company (your company) does and how the project will fit into this background.
HOW will you set about the project. Describe the skills that you will have to employ; what approach you will be using (for example experimental or analytical).
WHEN will you achieve each objective. This usually is answered by a timing chart (bar chart, Gantt chart, Critical path chart, PERT chart etc.). You may want to break the project down into a number of stages and plan the sequence of those stages at this point. This timing chart is very important because your progress in the project will be monitored against it.

Defining a Project - Part I

2009-02-19T22:09:00.006Z

INITIAL REVIEW PHASE
Project aim, objectives and scope
For initial review purposes a provisional statement of aim is needed. This statement of project aim (sometimes called the "mission" statement) should be a single statement, preferably asingle sentence that covers the whole of the project work. It should be expected to remain unchanged throughout the duration of the project. The statement of aim should also:

Cover the overall purpose of the project (ie the key benefits expected)
Also cover the essentials of what is to be done to achieve the purpose
Define the scope of the project
But not unduly constrain the scope of the project

Project objectives are more detailed statements of what the project is going to deliver. They clarify the aim and serve to make sure that all parties to the projrct understand what the project is expected to achieve. At this stage a broad estimate of the financial advantages and the project cost will probably be made.

The project scope refers to the work that is actually to be done within the project. It might also indicate any work that is not included, but is essential for the project to succeed. At this stage the scope statement is likely to be limited.

Here is an example of what an initial Aim, Objectives and Scope statement might look like:

Aim

To improve manufacturing performance by replacing our existing NC machine tools for turned parts with new Computer Numerically Controlled machines.

Objectives

To reduce manufacturing costs by 4% and ensure security of orders at current levels by
Increasing capacity
Improving quality
Reducing cost for a project expenditure of 0.5 million pounds

Scope: The project will cover

Removal of old machines
Preparation of site
Purchase of new machines
Training

Project Definition

2009-02-19T18:34:00.003Z

Defining Aim, Objectives and Scope of a Project. A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service. And project has:

Specific goals
Defined beginning and end
Defined resources

What constitutes project success? "Triple constraint"

Project is completed within:

TIME
RESOURCES
QUALITY (Deliverables)

Why do projects fail?

Poor definition of needs
Poor planning and control
Organisational factors

What does Project Management do?

Applies knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations. i.e. to complete the project within estimated goals of TIME, BUDGET and QUALITY!

Project Life Cycle

A project has 4 phases:

Project Definition (WHAT?)
Project Planning (HOW?)
Project Implementation (execution and control)
Project Completion

Phase 1: Project Definition (WHAT?)

A simple example of a project title would be:

"Design a decision support system for the customer service department which provides the best possible customer service."

How's the goal defined in the above project definition? will the following be a better project goal...?

Answer 95% of customer calls within 3 minutes.

Project definition = 1st step in project management:

Identify users/stakeholders
What are their needs and expectations?
Define project goal clearly
Define project scope
Project Definition Document

1. Identify project stakeholders

Project team must identify stakeholders, determine their needs/expectations and manage/influence these to ensure a successful project
Who are key stakeholders?

2. Define stakeholder needs

Do this before defining project g0als... Project GOALS must reflect actual NEEDS! Understanding and articulating stakeholder needs and expectations are critical to project success.

3. Define project GOAL

goals = What the project will produce

Define as clearly as possible
Then break down into deliverables

THIS IS THE CRITICAL FIRST STEP IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT!!!

Criteria of good goals:

S pecific
M easurable
A chievable (but challenging)
R ealistic
T ime-based

4. Define project scope

Definition: SCOPE = size of the project

What is to be included
What is to be excluded (critical)

Pitfalls in project definition:

Rushing ahead to the next step, i.e. defining the solution, project planning, implementation, etc.
Ambiguous needs
Shifting needs
Distorting needs
"Gold plating"
Stakeholder does not know what they want

Determining the need for a project

2009-02-18T00:15:00.005Z

How is the need for project management within an organisation determined?
How do you know whether an organisation should be using project management? The following five questions give some insight into whether project management is neccessary:

are the tasks in the project complex?
are there dynamic environmental considerations?
are the constraints tight?
are there several tasks to be integrated?
are there several functional boundaries to be crossed?

If any of these questions is answered yes, then some form of project management is likely to assisst the organisation. Of course this is not an exhustive test but it is enough to give general guidance on whether to use project management or not.

It is worth noting that it is possible for project management to exist in only one area, department or division, or to exist perhaps for just certain types of project within an organisation's range of outputs. For example, an organisation may manufacture large batches of a consumer product and need traditional management for that operation. But new products, which let's assume are handled through a department of that name, could be provided through the development of research and development projects. Therefore new products would be a candidate for using project management.

Not all organisations need project management. Organisations engaged in simple tasks, whether in a static or a dynamic environment, do not need it. Mnufacturers with slowly changing technology do not need project management - unless, of course, they have a requirement for special projects, such as capital equipment activities, which would interrupt the flow of their normal production activities, which would interrupt the flow of their normal production. Organisations whose objectives are not tightly constrained, or whose activities are unifunctional, or whose projects require only one or two activities to undertake the project, will not need project management.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 94.

Explanation of factors in selecting a structure

2009-02-17T15:27:00.005Z

Number of projects and their relative importance
If a performing organisation is dealing with projects only infrequently, a functional structure supported by ad-hoc roject co-ordinators may be best. As the number of projects increases and their relative importance (measured by the budget of all projects as a percentage of the organisational budget, or any other method) increases, the organisational structure should adapt by moving to a matrix structure with a stronger project orientation.

Level of uncertainty in projects
The projected organisational structure is favoured when there is a high degree of uncertainty with the work to be undertaken. It is easier to achieve tight control, and to react faster to the effects of uncertainty, when each project manager gets all the information regarding actual performance directly from those who are actively involved and controls all the resources used in the project. Functional structures, in general, favour a working environment where there are low levels of uncertainty.

Type of technology used
New or different technologies are best handled by projectised structures whereas functional structures are seen as best handling standardised technology. When a project is based on a number of different technologies, and the effort in each area does not justify continuous effort throughout the project life-cycle, the matrix organisation is preferred. A functional organisation usually has one focal point for each type of technology. The knowledge gained in all work is accumulated at that focal point and is available to the entire organisation. If a project concentrates on a technology that is mastered by one functional area, the functional organisation structure, with a project co-ordinator for each function, is likely to be the best choice.

Research and development
Pojects where new technologies or processes that are to be developed will be subject to high levels of uncertainty regarding (a) task completion times, (b) the likelihood of a contemplated outcome to satisfy the requirements, or (c) simply doubt about integrating the project's components then a project organisational structure may be best.

Project complexity
High complexity, when very good co-ordination between the project team personnel is required, is usually best handled in a project organisational structure. Communication is most rapid and unobstructed in the projectised structure. Low-complexity projects are best handled by a functional organisation, or a matrix arrangement with a functional orientation.

Duration of projects
Matrix organisational structures are favoured when the duration of the work is short, whereas the project structure is favoured when the work is of long duration of many months or years.

Resources used by projects
When common resources are shared by two or more projects, the matrix arrangement with a functional orientation tends to be best. This is the case when expensive resources are used or when each project does not need a fully devoted unit of a resource. If the number of common resources among projects is small, the project organisational structure is preferred.

Overhead cost
By sharing facilities and services among projects, the overhead cost of each project is reduced. A matrix organisation should be preferred if an effort to reduce overhead cost is required.

Data requirements
If many projects have to share the same databases and the information generated by projects must be made immediately available to organisational elements not directly involved in these projects, a matrix structure with a functional orientation is preferred.

Structures of other participating entities
In addition to the foregoing factors, the organisational structures of other stakeholder participating organisations must be taken into account. If they have a functional orientation, direct communication between similar functions in the two organisations might be most appropriate. If they are project- or product-oriented, an arrangement that supports direct communication links between project managers in their respective organisations might be the most effective.

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 82, 83

Factors in selecting an organisational structure

2009-02-17T15:18:00.004Z

The primary factors that should be taken into consideration when selecting an organisational structure for managing projects are:

number of projects and their relative importance
level of uncertainty in projects
type of technology used
research and development
project complexity
duration of projects
resources used by projects
overhead cost
data requirements
structures of other participating entities

Ref: Managing projects for success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, page 82

System

2009-01-30T18:48:00.005Z

A system is a set of components interconnected for a purpose. Another way of describing a system is as:
An arrangement and set of relationships among multiple parts operating as a whole.

For instance, no part of a human being is human, only the whole is. This is an important statement. In other words, if you are considering a project, it cannot be understood simply by breaking it down into its elements. The essential properties of a system taken as a whole derive from the interactions. When a system is taken apart, it loses its essential properties. Because of this a system is a whole that cannot be understood by analysis.
So the systems approach is a way of thinking, of viewing the world. Systems thinking is being able to take a confused, chaotic situation and to develop some degree of order in it. The systems approach is a useful way of dealing with complex things - and complexity, you will recall, is one of the characteristics of projects. In project management theory and practice:

Systems thinking (looking at whole) and analytical thinking (looking at the parts) go together.

Ref: Managing Projects for Success, a trilogy by Albert Hamilton, Page 38

Creativity

2008-12-24T01:30:00.005Z

The brain can only see what it is prepared to see and it usually sees things as existing patterns. When we analyse data, we can only pick out ideas we already have. If you can rid yourself of these inhibitions you will be creative. To be creative you have to use your right brain.
Within each of us, one of the brain hemispheres is normally dominant over the other. The ideal situation is to try to develop a balance between them. When the two hemispheres are working together the brain is being optimised. How can this be done? If we do develop the side which has tended to have been neglected how will this help us? By using the left and right brains we:

become more creative (right brain)
solve problems faster (left brain)
learn things quicker (left brain)
improve our memory (right brain)
decipher body language better (right brain)
improve communications (left brain)

We are now beginning to appreciate how important it is to develop both sides together. In general our schooling tends to encourage a preponderant use of the left brain; this has led many people to neglect the right brain. In other words, at a crucial time in our lives, most of us learn reading, writing and arithmetic (the good old three R's) but learn much less, or nothing, about systemic thinking (thinking in wholes), mapping our thoughts, how to daydream, etc.

Ref: Managing Projects for Success. a trilogy by Albert Hamilton. page 10, 11

Project Management

2008-12-24T00:32:00.002Z

You cannot control something unless you have planned it.

We cannot control what needs to be done if we don't plan.

Computer-Aided Manufacturing terms and expressions

2008-10-14T21:08:00.006+01:00

I have tried to explain some important expressions used in CAM software, which is important to understand those terms when setting up the CAM software for simulation such as Powermill DELCAM. In future more expressions will be added to the post.

1. Spindle Speed: The angular speed of the CNC machine spindle. Measured in rev/min, rpm units.
2. Cutting Feed Rate: The rate at which the cutting tool and the workpiece move in relation to one another. Cutting Feed rate is the velocity at which the cutter is fed, that is, advanced against the workpiece. it is often expressed in units of distance per time for milling (typically inches per minute [ipm] or millimeters per minute [mm/min]).
3. Thickness: It is the amount of extra material specified to remain on the work-piece after machining.
4. Stepover: The size of the cutter's diameter that is engaged in a cut. The stepover should be 75% to 80% of the cutter's diameter.
5. Tolerance: It controls the accuracy to which the cutter path follows the shape of the work-piece. For roughing a Coarse tolerance can be used but for finishing a Fine tolerance must be used.

Mould Flow Simulation

2008-09-19T00:25:00.017+01:00

Mould flow simulation is carried out through MoldflowXpress in SolidWorks. It is a wizard–based design validation tool unique to SolidWorks. MoldflowXpress can be used as a first step to quickly and easily test the manufacturability of plastic injection-molded parts.

MoldflowXpress reduces development cost and time-to-market by analyzing how to:

· Minimize part wall thickness
· Determine the best injection point location
· Optimize plastics part designs for manufacturability

In this post I want to Start MoldflowXpress procedures on a 3D CAD model (Telephone Base):

Step 1: In SolidWorks, from menu select Tools and then from tools menu select MoldflowXpress...(Figure Below).

Step 2: MoldflowXpress welcome window will appear.

Step 3: I will Specify an Injection Location somewhere on flat surface of the telephone base.

Step 4: In next step I will assign a plastic material. Click on the Material tab, and select PC – Polycarbonate.

Step 5: The next step to setting up a design validation analysis within MoldflowXpress is to specify the process conditions, melt and mold temperature and plus the option to calculate or specify the injection time.

Step 6: Final Step is to run a MoldflowXpress Design Validation Analysis.

In this step by clicking on Analyze tab the injection moulding process will commence.

The following pictures illustrates the process of injection moulding:

Upon analysis completion:

· A Fill Time plot is shown in the graphics area. The scale indicates the time required for the plastic melt to flow from the injection point through the mold.
· A result summary appears in the dialog box. For this analysis, the part may be difficult to fill and part quality may be unacceptable.

By clicking Advice on the Results tab for results-specific advice. In this case, suggestions include increasing part thickness, moving the injection location, and so on.

Other suggestions include the addition of mold features such as sprues, runners, and gates. These mold features are available by upgrading to Moldflow Plastics Advisers for SolidWorks products.

Final results and advice summary:
Message:

The part may be difficult to fill and part quality may be unacceptable (Amber light shown in above picture).

Resolution:

To improve filling, you can try to increase part wall thickness, move the injection location, select a different material or change process conditions.
Also, it is strongly recommended that the analysis be run with grade-specific material data to determine actual injection pressure requirements and the resulting pressure and temperature distributions.
Additionally, mold features such as sprues, runners and gates should be analyzed to determine their effect on the manufacturability and quality of the part.

Solution:
To solve the problem the thickness of the wall has been increased.
This time the result is satisfactory. The amber light turns into green light which says “The part can be easily filled with acceptable quality using the current injection location”. The following picture shows the final result.

Converting 3D model to Concept Sketch Model

2008-09-04T14:09:00.011+01:00

I will introduce a program called Google sketchup which is free and can be downloaded from the link below:
http://sketchup.google.com/

The application of the program is easy and in this tutorial I will explaine how to convert a 3D CAD model to a sketch concept through application of google sketchup.

Step 1: A 3D model is created.

Step 2: From Menu select window and then select Styles option.

Step 3: Styles window will open.

Step 4: From Styles window I have selected a sketch pattern (You can select different patterns with variuos line thickness and color).

Final Sketch Design

My Graduation Ceremony

2008-09-02T16:20:00.007+01:00

3ds Max Simulation

2008-08-15T00:06:00.013+01:00

The Environment Scene is created by 3ds Max and it includes clouds, horizon, water, trees and etc. You can find the tutorial from right hand column of my weblog.

The images below show samples of the environment.

Element solution and Nodal solution comparison

2008-07-26T21:29:00.003+01:00

The nodal solution magnitudes are the average values computed using quantities calculated for each element connected to the node. Thus the nodal solution contours are always nice and smooth. They give a good representation of stress variations once the mesh is sufficiently dense to produce small differences in quantities calculated for elements with common nodes.

Axisymmetric Problems in Finite Element Analysis

2008-07-26T01:10:00.004+01:00

For problems that are rotationally symmetric about an axis, a slicing plane that contains the symmetry axis exposes the interior configuration of the geometry. Since any slice created by such a plane looks like any other slice, the problem can be conveniently analyzed by considering any one planar section.

Analysis for Fluid Dynamics

2008-07-15T20:10:00.003+01:00

Various fluids such as air and liquid are used as an operating fluid in a blower, a compressor, and a pump. The shape of flow channel often determines the efficiency of these machines. The flow structures in a diffuser and the channel with a butterfly valve are examined by using FLOTRAN which is an assistant program of ANSYS.
A diffuser is usually used for increasing the static pressure by reducing the fluid velocity and the diffuser can be easily found in a centrifugal pump.

Mode Analysis

2008-07-15T16:37:00.003+01:00

When a steel bar is hit by a hammer, a clear sound can be heard because the steel bar vibrates at its resonant frequency. If the bar is oscillated at this resonant frequency, it will be found that the vibration amplitude of the bar becomes very large. Therefore, when a machine is designed, it is important to know the resonant frequency of the machine.
The analysis to obtain the resonant frequency and the vibration mode of an elastic body is called "Mode Analysis".
It is said that there are two methods for mode analysis. One is the theoretical analysis and the other is the Finite-Element Method (FEM). Theoretical analysis is usually used for a simple shape of an elastic body, such as a flat plate and a straight bar, but theoretical analysis cannot give us the vibration mode for the complex shape of an elastic body. FEM analysis can obtain the vibration mode for it.

Finite Element Model Items

2008-07-12T10:21:00.002+01:00

Items that constitute of a Typical Finite Element Model:

The types of elements used in assembling the model.
Element geometric properties such as areas, thickness, etc.
The element material property values.
The location of the nodes with respect to the user defined XYZ system.
A list showing which elements connect which nodes.
A definition of the nodes with displacement boundry conditions.
The loadings, their magnitudes, locations and directions.

MRP

2008-06-05T00:17:00.002+01:00

Material Requirements Planning (MRP) is a software based production planning and inventory control system used to manage manufacturing processes. Although it is not common nowadays, it is possible to conduct MRP by hand as well.
An MRP system is intended to simultaneously meet three objectives:

Ensure materials and products are available for production and delivery to customers.
Maintain the lowest possible level of inventory.
Plan manufacturing activities, delivery schedules and purchasing activities.

PDM

2008-06-05T00:03:00.004+01:00

PDM or Product Data Management systems hold and manage such material as product specifications, plans, geometric models, CAD drawings and images. PDM tools provide comprehensive whole-life management capabilities for all data associated with a product, covering inception, design, manufacture, maintenance and disposal.

There are three basic elements to a PDM: A data repository or "vault," a set of user functions, and a set of utility functions. These elements allow the software to distribute and control access to product information. Though documents are created in other applications, the PDM assumes the roles of file access and saving through embedded commands.

CAID

2008-05-31T12:14:00.003+01:00

It is the abbriviation of Computer-Aided Industrial Design. It is subset of Computer Aided Design.
In CAID designers have the freedom of creativity and innovation, but typically follow a simple design methodology:

Creating sketches, using a stylus
Generating curves directly from the sketch
Generating surfaces directly from the curves

The final result is a 3D model that projects the main design intent the designer had in mind. The model can then be saved in STL format to send it to a rapid prototyping machine to create the real-life model.

CAID helps the designer to focus on the technical part of the design methodology rather than taking care of sketching and modeling, then contributing to the selection of a better product proposal in less time.

IGES

2008-05-24T12:39:00.004+01:00

Geometry for FEM analysis can be created with solid modeling CAD or other software and imported into ANSYS. The IGES (Initial Graphics Exchange Specification) neutral file is a common format used to exchange geometry between computer programs.

Plane Stress

2008-05-24T12:26:00.007+01:00

This deals with stretching and shearing of thin object loaded in the plane of its largest dimensions such as thin slab, thin beam, spur gear tooth.