Complex Product Development Research Articles

Network-Based Analysis of Requirement Change in Customized Complex Product Development

Requirement change impact analysis has been acknowledged as one of the crucial steps in product design. In this paper, we propose a network-based method to analyze change impact. By defining interconnections among parts, we build a directed weighted complex product network model to represent the product structure under given requirements. Then, we discuss two requirement change cases and develop corresponding modification policies. To specify indirect impacts, we propose a change propagation searching model in light of Matthew Effect theory. To measure the degree of change impacts, we propose two criteria (network variation scale and extra network change cost), both of which can provide a systemic assessment of impacts. Finally, a case of clutch is presented to illustrate the proposed approach. The results can provide way of measuring overall change impacts on the product, which can support decision-makers to respond that the change request can be fulfilled or not.

How to Avoid Innovation Competence Loss in R&D Outsourcing

Companies developing complex products face a crucial dilemma: the benefits of research and development (R&D) outsourcing such as lower costs, access to specialist knowledge, or shorter development lead times often have negative consequences for competence development due to the loss of opportunities for learning by doing. Having experienced the problems of outsourcing R&D, Fiat developed a novel organizational solution that offers new insights as to how firms can organize R&D to protect against innovation competence loss in R&D outsourcing.

Scientific and Regulatory Considerations for Generic Complex Drug Products Containing Nanomaterials.

In the past few decades, the development of medicine at the nanoscale has been applied to oral and parenteral dosage forms in a wide range of therapeutic areas to enhance drug delivery and reduce toxicity. An obvious response to these benefits is reflected in higher market shares of complex drug products containing nanomaterials than that of conventional formulations containing the same active ingredient. The surging market interest has encouraged the pharmaceutical industry to develop cost-effective generic versions of complex drug products based on nanotechnology when the associated patent and exclusivity on the reference products have expired. Due to their complex nature, nanotechnology-based drugs present unique challenges in determining equivalence standards between generic and innovator products. This manuscript attempts to provide the scientific rationales and regulatory considerations of key equivalence standards (e.g., in vivo studies and in vitro physicochemical characterization) for oral drugs containing nanomaterials, iron-carbohydrate complexes, liposomes, protein-bound drugs, nanotube-forming drugs, and nano emulsions. It also presents active research studies in bridging regulatory and scientific gaps for establishing equivalence of complex products containing nanomaterials. We hope that open communication among industry, academia, and regulatory agencies will accelerate the development and approval processes of generic complex products based on nanotechnology.

Software teams and their knowledge networks in large-scale software development

ContextLarge software development projects involve multiple interconnected teams, often spread around the world, developing complex products for a growing number of customers and users. Succeeding with large-scale software development requires access to an enormous amount of knowledge and skills. Since neither individuals nor teams can possibly possess all the needed expertise, the resource availability in a team's knowledge network, also known as social capital, and effective knowledge coordination become paramount. ObjectiveIn this paper, we explore the role of social capital in terms of knowledge networks and networking behavior in large-scale software development projects. MethodWe conducted a multi-case study in two organizations, Ericsson and ABB, with software development teams as embedded units of analysis. We organized focus groups with ten software teams and surveyed 61 members from these teams to characterize and visualize the teams’ knowledge networks. To complement the team perspective, we conducted individual interviews with representatives of supporting and coordination roles. Based on survey data, data obtained from focus groups, and individual interviews, we compared the different network characteristics and mechanisms that support knowledge networks. We used social network analysis to construct the team networks, thematic coding to identify network characteristics and context factors, and tabular summaries to identify the trends. ResultsOur findings indicate that social capital and networking are essential for both novice and mature teams when solving complex, unfamiliar, or interdependent tasks. Network size and networking behavior depend on company experience, employee turnover, team culture, need for networking, and organizational support. A number of mechanisms can support the development of knowledge networks and social capital, for example, introduction of formal technical experts, facilitation of communities of practice and adequate communication infrastructure. ConclusionsOur study emphasizes the importance of social capital and knowledge networks. Therefore, we suggest that, along with investments into training programs, software companies should also cultivate a networking culture to strengthen their social capital, a known driver of better performance.

How can crowds be used in developing complex industrial products? An analysis of factors impacting the usefulness of crowdsourcing outcomes

Understanding how to plan and execute crowdsourcing challenges of complex industrial products is crucial for receiving useful information and knowledge from crowds. This qualitative single-case study was, thus, initiated to analyse the factors impacting the usefulness of crowdsourcing outcomes. The data were collected by means of semi-structured in-depth interviews with representatives of a crowdsourcing company and a crowdsourcing platform provider. From these data, a number of factors impacting the usefulness of information and knowledge acquired from crowdsourcing were identified, and their significances were evaluated, thereby increasing our understanding of value creation from crowdsourcing activities. The need for novel skills and competences was highlighted. Though more validation is needed to generalise these preliminary results, this study generates a new qualitative understanding of the use of crowdsourcing in the development of complex (new) product development.

On the Application of Text Clustering in Engineering Change Process

In modern industry, the development of complex products involves engineering changes that frequently require redesigning or altering the products or their components. In an Engineering Change process, Engineering Change Requests (ECRs) are natural language written texts exchanged among process operators. ECRs describe the required change on a product or a component and the solution. After the change implementation, ECRs are stored but never consulted, missing opportunities to learn from previous projects. This paper explores the application of text clustering to natural language texts written during the Engineering Change process in industry. In detail, the use of Self Organizing Map (SOM) to the problem of unsupervised clustering of ECR texts is explored. A case study is presented in which ECRs collected during the Engineering Change process of a railways industry are analysed. The results show that SOM text clustering has a good potential to improve overall knowledge reuse and exploitation.

Function Module Partition for Complex Products and Systems Based on Weighted and Directed Complex Networks

Modular design is an effective approach to shorten lead-time and reduce cost for development of complex products and systems (CoPS). Because the physical details of the product are not available at the conceptual design stage, considerations in the downstream product development phases such as manufacturing and assembly cannot be used for partition of modules at the conceptual design stage. Since design solution at the conceptual design stage can be modeled by functions and relationships among these functions such as function flows including information flows, material flows, and energy flows, a novel approach is introduced in this research for function module partition of CoPS through community detection using weighted and directed complex networks (WDCN). First, the function structure is obtained and mapped into a weighted and directed complex network. Based on the similarity between behaviors of communities in WDCN and behaviors of modules in CoPS, a LinkRank-based community detection approach is employed for function module partition through optimization with simulated annealing. The function module partition for the power mechanism in a large tonnage crawler crane is conducted as a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed approach.

A Quality by Design Approach to Developing and Manufacturing Polymeric Nanoparticle Drug Products

The translation of nanomedicines from concepts to commercial products has not reached its full potential, in part because of the technical and regulatory challenges associated with chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) development of such complex products. It is critical to take a quality by design (QbD) approach to developing nanomedicines-using a risk-based approach to identifying and classifying product attributes and process parameters and ultimately developing a deep understanding of the products, processes, and platform. This article exemplifies a QbD approach used by BIND Therapeutics, Inc., to industrialize a polymeric targeted nanoparticle drug delivery platform. The focus of the approach is on CMC affairs but consideration is also given to preclinical, clinical, and regulatory aspects of pharmaceutical development. Processes are described for developing a quality target product profile and designing supporting preclinical studies, defining critical quality attributes and process parameters, building a process knowledge map, and employing QbD to support outsourced manufacturing.

A multi-skeleton modelling approach based on top-down design and modular product design for development of complex product layouts

ABSTRACTTop-down design (TDD) and modular product design (MPD) are two popular design strategies for development of complex products. Although integration of these two design strategies can improve the quality and efficiency for the development of complex products, it is difficult to implement the TDD and MPD strategies simultaneously due to the lack of tools that can handle modelling of the inheritance mechanism from the abstract design descriptions to the detailed design descriptions within TDD and modelling of the relatively independent design descriptions as groups within MPD. A new multi-skeleton modelling approach is introduced in this research for layout design of complex products based on TDD and MPD. First, through studies on the inheritance mechanism between design descriptions on different levels in the hierarchical product modelling architecture and the interface relationships between different modules, design information is classified into five categories: locations, interface features, design spaces, key features and kinematic constraints. Second, these different types of design information are modelled using three types of skeletons: location skeletons, interface skeletons and published skeletons. Third, a multi-skeleton modelling scheme is introduced for the development of product descriptions from relative abstract levels to more detailed levels recursively in TDD manner with relatively independent modules. This multi-skeleton modelling approach can be used to propagate changes of product descriptions on different levels, to improve design efficiency by reusing and modifying the existing modules, and to evaluate the design at early design stage without detailed design descriptions. In addition, the multi-skeleton model can be implemented in most CAD systems. A case study is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the new multi-skeleton modelling approach.

Research on Complex Products based on Digital Layout Design and Simulation Modeling

From the point of view of digital product development, this paper makes a deep discussion and research on the key technologies of pipeline layout design, pipeline layout optimization, and assembly simulation in the process of complex product development. We introduce an automatic pipe layout techniques based on improved rapidly exploring random tree, it could able to quickly establish the framework model of pipeline system, on this basis are discussed a pipeline of the simulated annealing algorithm based on automatic optimization algorithm, and interactive pipeline layout method, using computer artificial intelligence and design personnel manual intervention method to improve the quality of pipe layout. Also, we make the system realization of automatic layout of pipe line, and put forward related Suggestions.

Multi-skeleton model for top-down design of complex products

Generally, there are two alternative design approaches available to engineers: bottom-up and top-down. Considering the sharp increase in the complexity of most mechanical products, the top-down design approach is more widely adopted in the development of complex products. However, in traditional top-down design process, design parameters are communicated through single-skeleton models, and design units are strongly coupled due to the multi-dimensional complexity of products. Toward this end, a new top-down design approach based on multi-skeleton model is proposed in this article. First, in accordance with different kinds of design parameters, three major skeleton models are defined, including location skeleton model, published skeleton model, and design skeleton model. And the characteristics of multi-skeleton models are also described. Then, the top-down design process based on the multi-skeleton model is explored, especially in the multi-skeleton modeling phase. It is also illustrated in detail that how to realize design parameter transmission and design unit reuse. Subsequently, it elaborates the communicating way and structure optimization of design parameters to support parameters controlled publishing and design units reuse. Finally, a meteorological satellite and a crawler crane design cases are implemented to expound the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed framework.

Using Distributed Scrum for Supporting an Online Community

One purpose of higher education is to prepare students for a modern and ever-changing global society characterized by increasing complexity and collaborative environments. Scrum is an agile, widely used framework for project management dealing with the development of complex products. Scrum projects are conducted in small, empowered teams with intense communication, interaction and collaboration between the team members, facilitated by a servant-leader Scrum master. Scrum has been commonly used in professional software development and is also now being adopted in other areas, including education. There have been few studies of the application of Scrum in higher education and very few of them have studied distributed Scrum in an online context. An online learning community has several positive effects for students such as increased learning, engagement, retention and lower risks for isolation and dropouts. Participating in and contributing to a team is dependent on a sense of community, which can be difficult to build up in a distributed environment where members are geographically dispersed and do not have the possibility to meet and communicate face to face. This study examines to what extent and how distributed Scrum can support building an online learning community, from a student perspective. Twenty students, enrolled in an online course in distributed software development, participated in four Scrum projects as members of distributed Scrum teams, each team consisting of five students. Students' perceptions were investigated by conducting semi-structured interviews. The interview transcripts were analyzed according to Rovai's four dimensions of a classroom community. The results indicate that students were very satisfied with their distributed Scrum projects and that they experienced a high degree of flexibility during the projects. The Scrum process promoted and initiated communication and interaction among students and they learned how to communicate and collaborate effectively in an online environment. The transparency in Scrum was perceived as a key factor to open communication and effective collaboration and also contributed to increasing their motivation and engagement in the projects. Another interesting outcome of this study was understanding the importance of creating a team with members who are similar regarding competence level, ambition and preferences in working schedule.

A Multidisciplinary Framework to Model Complex Team-Based Product Development

This paper investigates a multidisciplinary framework that simulates design decisions in a complex team-based product development in which engineers simultaneously work on a team project and individual projects. The proposed framework integrates collaborative design with (1) equilibrium analysis, (2) uncertainty modeling based on behavioral game-theory results, and (3) noncooperative decision making using decision analysis. In the proposed framework, noncooperative decision making is used to simulate engineers’ decisions about team-project commitment and to analyze potential free riding. Collaborative design is used to model design outcomes when engineers commit to the team project. Equilibrium analysis and behavioral game-theory results are used to infer uncertainty about other engineers’ decisions. Decision analysis is used to calculate expected values of decision alternatives. The proposed framework and the design decision making model are illustrated using a pressure vessel design as a team project conducted by two engineers: a design engineer and a materials engineer.

On the Use of Self-Organizing Map for Text Clustering in Engineering Change Process Analysis: A Case Study.

In modern industry, the development of complex products involves engineering changes that frequently require redesigning or altering the products or their components. In an engineering change process, engineering change requests (ECRs) are documents (forms) with parts written in natural language describing a suggested enhancement or a problem with a product or a component. ECRs initiate the change process and promote discussions within an organization to help to determine the impact of a change and the best possible solution. Although ECRs can contain important details, that is, recurring problems or examples of good practice repeated across a number of projects, they are often stored but not consulted, missing important opportunities to learn from previous projects. This paper explores the use of Self-Organizing Map (SOM) to the problem of unsupervised clustering of ECR texts. A case study is presented in which ECRs collected during the engineering change process of a railways industry are analyzed. The results show that SOM text clustering has a good potential to improve overall knowledge reuse and exploitation.

INTERNAL INTEGRATION IN COMPLEX COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS

While the importance of internal integration for effective inter-firm collaboration with suppliers is widely acknowledged, it is presently unclear how it is achieved in complex collaborative product development projects. This paper aims to address this gap in extant knowledge by investigating the internal integration approaches and exploring related project management challenges. Specifically, three internal integration approaches are found, namely integration based on multidirectional, frequent interaction; integration based on delimited, problem-solving; and based on unidirectional, information-oriented interaction. The study findings suggest that internal integration approaches are related to the degree of uncertainty in the subsystems of the suppliers, rather than the overall product system. Consequently, in complex product development projects involving many internal functions and several different suppliers, the specific supplier tasks, rather than the overall project structure and aims, determine the mode of internal integration required. This complexity creates important challenges for organisation, and requires flexibility in internal integration approaches.

Association of Design and Simulation Intent in CAD/CFD Integration

CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) requires strong expertise and extensive training to obtain accurate results. To improve the usability in the complex product development process, two new types of engineering features, fluid physics feature and dynamic physics feature, which convey the simulation intent, are proposed in this paper to achieve CFD solver setup automation and robust simulation model generation in an ideal CAD/CAE integration system. Further, the association between simulation intent and design intent is integrated with another newly defined fluid functional feature in order to achieve the consistency. Consequently, an optimal design could be achieved by considering production operation, manufacturability and cost analysis concurrently. A case study of steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) outflow control device (OCD) is presented to show the prospective benefits of the method.

Risk management on joint product development with power asymmetry between supplier and manufacturer

Risk management is a critical issue in complex product development, especially when suppliers are integrated. The power asymmetry between the supplier and manufacturer may largely influence the development process and affect the occurrence and interaction of risks, and it should be systematically examined. In this paper, we establish a structural model to study the impact of power asymmetry on risk occurrence in the joint product development (JPD). Empirical data collected from engineers in airspace industries show that path coefficients of the risk structural model are significantly different between the manufacturer-advantaged situation and the supplier-advantaged situation. The results indicate that power asymmetry has significant effects on risk occurrence and interaction. Furthermore, we provide managerial insights into customized risk-reduction measures from the perspective of the discovered relationship difference.

Intermediate model based efficient and integrated multidisciplinary simulation data visualization for simulation information reuse

The efficient and integrated visualization and reuse of multidisciplinary simulation data are imperative for the development of complex products. However, it is not a trivial task for designers to efficiently acquire, view and then reuse simulation data to improve the product design process. The challenge is that simulation data are always too huge to be transferred and retrieved quickly and they tend to be heterogeneous and tool-specific due to the lack of a uniform representation. In this study, an approach of intermediate model based efficient and integrated visualization of multidisciplinary simulation data for simulation information reuse is proposed to address the above issues. Firstly, the intermediate model based integrated model framework is designed to support the uniform modeling and integrated visualization of multidisciplinary simulation data. Then, the intermediate mesh model is constructed based on the hybrid mesh size (HMS) field to achieve the uniform representation of multidisciplinary simulation data with high-fidelity. Thirdly, a series of strategies such as coarse filtering, fine filtering for incremental transmission and data compression are proposed to improve data transmission efficiency. Moreover, a simulation model descriptor (SMD) based similarity assessment method is developed to support the efficient retrieval of simulation models for reuse. Finally, several experiments are conducted to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model and methods.

The Nature of the Co-Evolutionary Process

A business ecosystem is a community that consists of various levels of interdependent firms which co-evolve in an ongoing cycle and constantly renew themselves. By undertaking an in-depth, qualitative study of multinational companies in the mobile computing industry based in the Great China region, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we explore the nature of the co-evolutionary process and its influence on complex product development. We find that this process consists of three domains of activity: co-vision, co-design, and co-create. We also find that each domain of activity plays a different but important role in stimulating collaborative innovation for complex product development in the mobile computing industry’s business ecosystem. We also discuss the implications for theory and future research directions.

Ontology-Based Assembly Design Representation for Model Reuse

Assembly is an important part in production and development of complex products. Flexible assembly retrieval is one of the key issues to find the reusable model. The main objective of this paper is to extend the model of ontology-based assembly design for model reuse. Firstly, we propose a representation of assembly structural data including topological structure, assembly semantics, and geometrical information. Secondly, we enrich assembly design (AsD) ontology for knowledge captured and shared in Web Ontology Language 2 Description Logic (OWL 2 DL) and Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL). And then, we define the matching strategies and similarity assessment for two matched models. Finally, we illustrate the validity of assembly design representation for model reuse through experiments.