Managing Complexity in Aircraft Design Using Design Structure Matrix

Abstract

Modern aerospace systems have reached a level of complexity that requires systematic methods for their design. The development of products in aircraft industry involves numerous engineers from different disciplines working on independent components. Routine activities consume a significant part of aircraft development time. To be competitive, aircraft industry needs to manage complexity and readjust the ratio of innovative versus routine work. Thus, the main objective is to develop an approach that can manage complexity in engineering design, reduce the design cycle time, and reduce the product development cost. The design structure matrix (DSM) is a simple tool to perform both analysis and management of complex systems. It enables the user to model, visualize, and analyze the dependencies among the functional group of any system and derive suggestions for the improvement or synthesis of a system. This article illustrates with a case study how DSM can be used to manage complexity in aircraft design process. The result of implementing the DSM approach for Light Combat Aircraft (Navy) at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, India, (in aircraft design) show primary benefits of 75% reduction in routine activities, 33% reduction in design cycle time, 50% reduction in rework cost, and 30% reduction in product and process development cost of aircraft.