Communication permeates every aspect of an engineer's work-from clarifying product specifications to shaping social ties. This paper offers an overview of recommendations from literature to improve communication within and among engineering teams. We assume communication problems are often the outcome of underlying factors and that it is fruitful to study and improve these influences. Having been empirically elicited in prior research, 24 factors considered in this paper include, e.g., availability of information about product specifications, roles and responsibilities, and overview of sequence of tasks. To improve these factors in order to enable effective communication, this paper collates more than hundred recommendations from journal articles and textbooks published in the fields of engineering design, management science, sociology, and psychology. Recommendations include, for example, identify priorities through risk and bottleneck analysis, give clear descriptions and role expectations, and employ effective process modeling tools. Contributions of this paper are a list of recommendations for industry practitioners and an effort-benefit evaluation of individual recommendations.@en

This paper aims to elucidate practitioners' understanding and implementation of Lean in Product Development (LPD). We report on a workshop held in the UK during 2012. Managers and engineers from four organizations discussed their understanding of LPD and their ideas and practice regarding management and assessment of value and waste. The study resulted in a set of insights into current practice and lean thinking from the industry perspective. Building on this, the paper introduces a balanced value and waste model that can be used by practitioners as a checklist to identify issues that need to be considered when applying LPD. The main results indicate that organizations tend to focus on waste elimination rather than value enhancement in LPD. Moreover, the lean metrics that were discussed by the workshop participants do not link the strategic level with the operational one, and poorly reflect the value and waste generated in the process. Future directions for research are explored, and include the importance of a balanced approach considering both value and waste when applying LPD, and the need to link lean metrics with value and waste levels.@en

The Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM) has proved to be a useful tool for system structure elicitation and analysis. However, as with any modelling approach, the insights gained from analysis are limited by the quality and correctness of input information. This paper explores how the quality of data in a DSM can be enhanced by elicitation methods which include comparison of information acquired from different perspectives and levels of abstraction. The approach is based on comparison of dependencies according to their structural importance. It is illustrated through two case studies: creation of a DSM showing the spatial connections between elements in a product, and a DSM capturing information flows in an organisation. We conclude that considering structural criteria can lead to improved data quality in DSM models, although further research is required to fully explore the benefits and limitations of our proposed approach.@en

The need for integration of computer-aided design and computer-aided engineering environments stems from the business priority to reduce product cycle times. It is exacerbated by the coexistence of two different paradigms: a topological one in embodiment design and a functional one in simulation. This dualism places increasing demands on human communication between design and simulation engineers. This paper claims that reflecting communication is a key factor for successful collaboration. Reflection is used in both senses of the Latin word 'reflectare': to trigger active thinking about and consideration of communication, as well as to mirror perceptions of a given situation by people collaborating. The paper reports on the development and application of a maturity-grid approach to diagnose the current and desired states of communication between design engineers and simulation engineers in the car body development of a German automotive manufacturer. Results include three themes: one, the importance of understanding of the collaborators'information needs; two, the importance of orientation, e.g., indicated by the engineers' overview of sequence of tasks in the design process; and three, the importance of reflection.@en

Design tasks need to be rescheduled and reprioritised frequently during product development. Inappropriate priority decisions generate rework; thus, the policy used to guide such decisions may have a significant effect on design cost and lead time. Generic priority rules provide easily implementable guidelines for task prioritisation and are theoretically effective for many planning problems. But can they be used in design processes, which include iteration, rework and changes? In this article, a discrete-event simulation model is developed to investigate priority policies in design. The model explores the combined effects of progressive iteration, rework and change propagation during design of interconnected parts in a product architecture. Design progression is modelled as an increase in the maturity of parts; rework and change propagation cause maturity levels in certain parts to reduce. Twelve product architecture models ranging in size from 7 to 32 elements are simulated to draw qualitative and general insights. Sensitivity of the findings to assumptions and model inputs is tested. Generally effective priority policies are identified, and their impact is shown to depend on the interconnectedness and organisation of product architecture, as well as the degree of concurrency in the design process.@en

The design of complex products, such as aero engines or cars, requires the co-ordination of many different individuals and groups of designers. Communication has been identified by many researchers and practitioners in industry as a major determinant of success or failure in design projects. Communication is influenced by manifold factors on different levels, be it through product attributes, information and media-specific factors or factors arising from organisational and team structures, and individual activities. Understanding of associations between these factors supports successful communication management. This paper presents associations between selected factors influencing communication. It shows a network of correlating factors covering a number of aspects of communication in engineering design and focuses particularly on 'collaboration', 'mutual trust', 'overview of sequence of tasks in the design process', and 'autonomy of task execution'.@en

This paper shows how two approaches to PD process analysis - structural metrics and simulation analysis - can be combined. Structural metrics can be used to provide a high level analysis of an existing network of tasks. Stochastic simulation can be used to obtain an overview of how tasks interact over time. Both approaches are applied to a process model that originates from the body-in-white design process of a premium class sedan as used in a major German automotive manufacturer. We demonstrate and contrast the analysis approaches, individually and in combination.@en

Designing complex products, such as jet engines, cars or certain types of software, necessitates the coordination of activities of many participants during the design process. Communication is seen as the vehicle by which this coordination could be achieved. Communication itself is influenced by many different factors that are connected. This study presents an exploration of correlations between these factors based on statistical analyses of empirical data. The research uses data collected via the 'Communication Grid Method', (CGM) a structured maturity grid method to assess the perception of communication within and across team-interfaces. Five empirical studies in the aerospace, automotive, and IT industries where concurrent engineering is practiced are used. The results offer insights for researching and managing communication across inter-departmental interfaces. It has been shown in particular, how directly and indirectly linked factors influencing communication in product development form a network of correlations. Mutual trust and collaboration exhibit thematic centrality.@en

This paper explores the relationship between value and waste in the context of Lean Product Development (LPD). Although value and waste belong to prominent concepts being explored in the effort of developing LPD, however, understanding value and waste and their relationship in the complex and uncertain product development process (PDP) is a challenging task. This paper explores the relationship between value methods and waste types using a Domain Mapping Matrix (DMM). Moreover, in an effort to improve the Product Development Process (PDP) performance, we present a conceptual improvement guideline for improving PDP. This study uses literature review to develop the DMM of value and waste as well as the improvement guideline. The results of this research can be used in practice to identify waste types, and to select suitable value methods to eliminate corresponding critical waste types in their organization.@en

Design Structure Matrices (DSMs) are a widely spread and useful tool for structuring and analysing design processes and related aspects such as products themselves, organisations, etc. Though this tool is simple, yet quite powerful, problems might arise in using them due to the subjectivity of the set up model within the DSM, as it is with every model building exercise. This contribution looks at the individual differences in filling out a DSM, the reasons for those differences, as well as means to overcome them. This covers a clear procedure for using DSMs, extended tools using and supporting DSMs, and a better understanding of this matrix approach. The latter covers different issues and "linkage types" that can be addressed by a DSM and its use in a system theory context. It also emphasises that DSMs are just one method using a matrix approach, which is only one representation of a graph or a network, with other methods using similar approaches and covering other useful aspects. A simple, yet important contribution of our research is the appropriate direction of DSMs, i.e. the dependencies going from rows to columns or vice versa, since this is an often discussed subject concerning DSMs.@en