Concept for the cost prognosis in the industrialization of highly iteratively developed physical products

With the ongoing technological progress and increasing global competition, companies are facing a continuously changing market environment. Due to the volatility of the market, rapid product adjustments and shorter product life cycles are required. Changing customer requirements are rarely taken into account, leading to inventions that do not make the transition to innovations. Highly iterative product development poses a possibility to integrate the customer voice into the development process and thus shorten the time-to-market and enable companies to respond to changes in requirements. Within the scope of highly iterative product development methods, cost analysis remains one of the main challenges for companies. Since the scope of development is not known at the beginning of a project, neither development nor industrialization costs can be specified. This, however, is essential for product and process development to meet cost-related customer requirements and for forecasting the production and investment budgets. With existing methods, it is either possible to agree to a fixed development budget and target price or to enable the customer to make changes during development. The concept presented in this paper aims to counteract this challenge. Therefore, existing approaches are analyzed with regard to derived requirements for the transfer from highly iterative and integrated product and process development to agile cost analysis. Influencing factors on product and production process costs are identified based on findings from literature. By aligning the influencing factors and requirements, dependencies between target costs of a product and degrees of freedom of highly iterative product and production process development can be derived and used for the development of a framework for iterative cost analysis. In conclusion, a concept for an agile cost prognosis for the industrialization of highly iterative developed physical products is presented

A Model for Enveloping Space Station Logistics Requirements

Since the inception of the Space Station customer Logistics study, it became apparent that a modeling process was needed to provide insight into the many sensitivities and relationships which exist among the numerous variables which impact Space Station Customer Accommodations and Logistics Support Requirements with regard to their associated design requirements. such a model would provide the necessary and timely support to the Space Station designers and planners during the program\u27s early development. This paper will address the current design and operations of the Space Station in particular the Manufacturing and Technology Laboratory (MTL) which is the primary focus of the study and the model. Typical experiments planned for the MTL will be addressed as well as their on-orbit operational and logistical requirements. A detailed description of the model developed under the study along with some of its many applications for scoping Space Station Logistics Requirements will be presented

The strategic management of projects to enhance value for money for BAA plc. Volumes 1 - 2.

The airport business is undergoing a shift from that of a traditionally operational nature, to a more commercial, profit driven business orientation. Airport infrastructure is experiencing a face lift in order to meet the requirements for customer satisfaction resulting from this shift in culture. In this regard airport operators must seek improvements in the way in which their development projects are planned, designed and delivered. An inherent link between corporate, business and project value, highlighted within this thesis, has led to the requirement for project management systems that maximise value and therefore facilitate the corporate strategy of the organisation.. This thesis develops a model to strategically manage projects to enhance value for money for BAA plc. It is concluded that the project management process is divided into two primary phases: the strategic and tactical, the former receiving minimum attention in UK construction project management. By combining the strategic management of a portfolio of projects with the tactical management of individual projects a link is forged between corporate and customer value and project value. The thesis concludes by presenting the Strategic Project Management framework for use by BAA project managers. The decision making framework facilitates the definition of project objectives and manages the project process to realise optimum value to the client / customer groups. By defining sub processes within the overall project process, the framework binds the interfaces such that information and communication flows freely and completely through the project.BAA pl

The Change from Feature Focus to Customer Focus in Packaging Development

The paper and packaging industry is a major and important industry in Sweden. The industry is capital intensive with a large investment base and long cycles for renewal and replenishment of machine platforms and other production equipment. Thus, the paper/packaging industry traditionally has a technical product oriented view and product development in the industry is partly made and understood in isolation from customer and consumer knowledge. In the packaging industry, paper material is the dominant but has lately experienced increased competition from plastics. In this prevailing situation, it has been hard to identify competitive advantages of paper material and packaging producers and converters have not been able to meet the changed market and customer requirements. The paper industry therefore needs to provide packaging materials and packaging solutions that provide competitive advantage and meet the needs and expectations of customers and consumers. Based on this background, the basic postulate proposed for investigation in this research is the need to turn toward a customer perspective, with increased customer understanding, in the development of packages and paper packaging material. The purpose of this research is to better understand the different factors that affect the transformation of perspectives, from a product perspective to a customer perspective, in paper/packaging producing organizations, with regard to product and service development. The understanding of the transformation of perspectives is interesting both from an expected customer outcome and from the viewpoint of the producing organization. The research aim is to highlight the perspective transformation in the organization on a system level as well as on an individual level, since the impact of individuals cannot be excluded when the aim is to understand such transformation. It is identified from research in service management that customer orientation is central in service management and that service development emanates from customer needs. Therefore, learning from the service industry, for knowledge transfer and for implementation in the paper/packaging industry is part of this research. The entire research is based on different studies in the paper/packaging industry and in the service industry. All studies are based on real-life case situations with qualitative, subjective and interpretive analysis. The results from these different cases are presented in five separate papers that are appended to this thesis. The thesis takes up a summary of the papers and the entire research. Based on the postulate that packaging development need to adopt a customer perspective, the research suggest for the packaging industry to align services to the core products for competitive advantage and increased customer value. The postulated customer perspective further proposes the package producer to regard oneself as part of the customers? and consumers? system. Models for working with the postulated perspective change as well as models for integration of individuals to the organizational systems are provided as a framework and theoretical contribution. The integration of the individuals to the organizational system concludes that the relations between employees and customers are pivotal for an increased understanding of customer needs. The interaction between product development employees and customers can therefore be enhanced through the trust of individuals within a system to transcend organizational boundaries into the entire system. It is further concluded in the research, that the transformation of perspectives is dependent on individuals and their learning. A daily desire to learn within an organization and individual courage to question the status quo, is necessary for the change to happen. One practical contribution of this research is the methods developed for such individual learning and for changing individuals? mindsets from a product/feature perspective to a customer value perspective in product and service development. In order to build knowledge about the transformation of perspectives, this research suggests action research as the preferred methodology for studying change processes. The main reason is the possibility to integrate human aspects into the change process and to get deep access to reality when studying the change of perspectives at the producer

Agile Requirements Engineering: A systematic literature review

Nowadays, Agile Software Development (ASD) is used to cope with increasing complexity in system development. Hybrid development models, with the integration of User-Centered Design (UCD), are applied with the aim to deliver competitive products with a suitable User Experience (UX). Therefore, stakeholder and user involvement during Requirements Engineering (RE) are essential in order to establish a collaborative environment with constant feedback loops. The aim of this study is to capture the current state of the art of the literature related to Agile RE with focus on stakeholder and user involvement. In particular, we investigate what approaches exist to involve stakeholder in the process, which methodologies are commonly used to present the user perspective and how requirements management is been carried out. We conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) with an extensive quality assessment of the included studies. We identified 27 relevant papers. After analyzing them in detail, we derive deep insights to the following aspects of Agile RE: stakeholder and user involvement, data gathering, user perspective, integrated methodologies, shared understanding, artifacts, documentation and Non-Functional Requirements (NFR). Agile RE is a complex research field with cross-functional influences. This study will contribute to the software development body of knowledge by assessing the involvement of stakeholder and user in Agile RE, providing methodologies that make ASD more human-centric and giving an overview of requirements management in ASD.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

Service strategy transition : product and service offerings in medical devices

This study explores how, by undertaking customer-oriented service analysis, a company follows a non-linear approach to product-service provision which is contrary to the approach advocated in the servitisation literature. The case study verifies applicability of existing service models using the example of a global manufacturer of medical products. Open-ended interviews serve as the main source of data to reveal the change opportunities for product-service provision. Study findings suggest that customer orientation is the key element causing the change in pattern; while the analysis of consumer operations provides understanding of the planned change initiatives

A Tissue Engineering product development pathway

Tissue engineering is a field of inquiry and research that uses engineering techniques and principles of biological sciences to develop functional substitutes for reconstruction of damaged organs. Commercial translation of tissue engineering products is currently in progress all over the world. Many companies are moving their interest towards this market segment that grows by 6% per year. Aim of this thesis is to probe the possibility of developing tissue engineering products in the most cost-effective way, minimizing the industrial risk and developing a specific fund raising model. Tissue engineering is based on three main features: cells, scaffolds and bioreactors. Cells are seeded on a scaffold and cultured in a bioreactor in order to obtain a tissue engineering product. Nevertheless, developing cell carrying products is hampered by certification claims ("advanced therapies" certification rules) that unbearably increase R&D and certification costs and can be faced by either big companies or start-ups of big companies and spin-offs of complex aggregates of research centers involved in advanced cell research. On the other hand, scaffolds (certification class IIb) and bioreactors for tissue engineering (certification class I) can be developed with a lower economic effort, being the competition based on innovation, since their market is in the "growth phase" for scaffolds and in the "introduction phase" for bioreactors in the Levitt's product life cycle theory. Purpose of this thesis is to basically study scaffold and bioreactor features, then to preliminarily design some models of bioreactors and, eventually, to set a business model, based on private and public fund raising, aimed to the development of scaffolds for dental implantology and of bioreactors for cardiovascular and bone tissue engineering. Finally, a business plan of a company being spin-off of Politecnico di Torino and industrial start-up has been elaborate