Commonality in complex product families : implications of divergence and lifecycle offsets

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2008.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 220-224).Commonality, or the sharing of components, processes, technologies, interfaces and/or infrastructure across a product family, represents one of many potential tools for increasing corporate profitability. Industrial interest in commonality is strong, but results appear to be mixed. A rich stream of academic research has examined commonality (typically under terms such as "product platforms" and "platform-based development") but has not emphasized the benefits and penalties of commonality, a topic that is critical to effective product family planning and lifecycle management, and ultimately, to improving corporate profitability. This dissertation leverages field research and a simple cost model to examine commonality in the context of complex product families. The core research effort was focused on conducting seven case studies of complex product families (aircraft, automobiles, satellites, and capital equipment). While the case studies provided a wealth of general insights, the studies were focused on examining divergence and lifecycle offsets, two critical topics that influence the benefits and penalties of commonality, yet appear to be inadequately addressed by the literature. Divergence refers to the tendency for commonality to reduce with time, for both beneficial and non-beneficial reasons. Lifecycle offsets refer to temporal differences between the lifecycle phases of product family members. Lifecycle offsets alter the potential benefits and penalties of commonality and their apportionment to individual products.(cont.) Additionally, key factors identified during the literature review and case studies were translated into a simple two-product cost model of development and production in order to demonstrate key research insights in a more analytical manner. The case studies provide a refined view of commonality that reflects the realities of industrial practice. The cases indicate that complex product families are developed in a mostly sequential manner; that commonality is highest during the product family planning phase and then declines significantly throughout the lifecycle; and that development focuses more on reusing prior product baselines than on enabling future, potential commonality. The case studies also identified challenges in the evaluation of commonality and its lifecycle management. The case findings and simple cost model contribute to an improved understanding of commonality, while the recommendations offer potential paths to improved corporate profitability.by Ryan C. Boas.Ph.D

Optimizing product development by actively managing commonality

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-183).Product platforms have proved to be an effective strategy for designing and manufacturing products in companies that provide different products for different customer needs. By designing common parts and creating product families, these companies have increased the profitability of their product lines leveraging economies of scale by increasing the volume of common parts and by sharing the development costs and investment among different products. However, managing common designs in product family development is not a trivial task. Product commonality usually decreases over time, a phenomenon called divergence, usually present in the development of complex products like automobiles. Furthermore, all the products from the product family will be designed in a product development project; whether they are executed in a major project or in individual projects depend on the complexity and scope of the product. A usual practice has been to develop these products in different projects due to limited availability of resources, creating an additional challenge for managing these common designs because of their different lifecycles, usually contributing to increase divergence. The main focus of this work is to understand the impact of designing a product platform on its associated development project(s) that share their resources including product components, facilities and human resources. The context of the study is scoped towards the dynamic nature of the execution of the project plan, rather than the product planning itself that is well covered by existing literature. To acknowledge the dynamic nature of the project, a system dynamics model that simultaneously simulated the lead and the derivative projects was developed based on their product commonality. The model was calibrated and complemented by a case study based on the development of a product platform in the automotive industry. Divergence rates were measured and were found to range between 0.4% to 1.2% loss of product commonality every month. These typical divergence rates were included into the system dynamics model and were found to cause significant effects to the product development project which can be as high as a 22% schedule overrun or a 29% increase of the required personnel to achieve the planned project schedule. These significant effects to the development project caused by non beneficial divergence should be avoided, concluding that actively managing product commonality can be an effective method to achieve a successful execution of the development projects when the product platform approach is utilized.by Raúl Pinillos Montaño.S.M.in Engineering and Managemen

Evaluating the impact of platform divergence on internal investment returns

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 248-253).Platforming has become an important means of cost-sharing among industrial products. However, recent research has shown that many firms face systemic downward pressure on commonality, with the result that many platforms realize less commonality than intended. This research was chartered to evaluate the costing of commonality benefits, the associated returns from commonality investments, and the potential impact of divergence on commonality benefits. This dissertation used a tiered approach to the research questions. A statistical study of commonality returns was conducted, finding evidence for a potential link between divergence and cost growth. Broad practice surveys of 16 firms revealed cost allocation practices and internal funding strategies as potential determinants of the commonality-cost relationships. Three detailed case studies were conducted to trace benefit trajectories through platformed products in the presence of commonality changes. We find support for the hypothesis that divergence has cost consequences, notably reducing inventory benefits, creating higher quality expenses and requiring additional manufacturing coordination. Additionally, we show that lead variants bearing platform costs achieved weaker investment returns and re-captured few benefits from later variants. We find also find evidence to refute the notion that representation at design reviews ensures downstream benefits are represented. Several management practices for making commonality decisions are identified. We propose a framework for commonality cost decisions, which explicitly captures the impact of individual variant decisions on the platform's cost structure. We identify a commonality cycle, a progression of commonality strategies seen by firms, driven by growing benefit analogies among platforms enabling larger investments, premature investment evaluation, and unrealized returns on commonality investments.by Bruce G. Cameron.Ph.D

LAI Whitepaper Series: “Lean Product Development for Practitioners”: Program Management for Large Scale Engineering Programs

The whitepaper begins by introducing the challenges of programs in section 4, proceeds to define program management in section 5 and then gives an overview of existing program management frameworks in section 6. In section 7, we introduce a new program management framework that is tailored towards describing the early program management phases – up to the start of production. This framework is used in section 8 to summarize the relevant LAI research

Program Management for Large Scale Engineering Programs

The goal of this whitepaper is to summarize the LAI research that applies to program management. The context of most of the research discussed in this whitepaper are large-scale engineering programs, particularly in the aerospace & defense sector. The main objective is to make a large number of LAI publications – around 120 – accessible to industry practitioners by grouping them along major program management activities. Our goal is to provide starting points for program managers, program management staff and system engineers to explore the knowledge accumulated by LAI and discover new thoughts and practical guidance for their everyday challenges. The whitepaper begins by introducing the challenges of programs in section 4, proceeds to define program management in section 5 and then gives an overview of existing program management frameworks in section 6. In section 7, we introduce a new program management framework that is tailored towards describing the early program management phases – up to the start of production. This framework is used in section 8 to summarize the relevant LAI research

Acquisition strategies for commonality across complex aerospace systems-of-systems

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 184-195).Commonality is a system architecting strategy widely used to improve affordability and reliability of families of products. However not all commonality is beneficial, and organizations must balance commonality benefits and commonality costs to pursue a successful strategy. The existing literature on commonality assumes that all commonality decisions are made within a single organization. This is not the case for NASA's human exploration architectures which are acquired through a network of prime contractors and sub-contractors. This thesis examines how the acquisition strategies chosen for NASA's human exploration architectures affect the realization of commonality in those architectures, and suggests ways in which acquisition architectures can be planned to improve commonality outcomes. The thesis synthesizes the requirements of NASA's exploration architectures and commonality best practice from existing literature. It also examines the Federal Acquisition Regulations in detail to assess the limitations on government acquisition structures in the United States, and postulates a range of acquisition structures open to NASA. New research data is presented which specifically targets the interplay between acquisition and commonality. An assessment of practitioners' views on acquisition strategies for commonality examines three detailed case studies as well as summarizing a broad range of shorter interviews across NASA and DOD projects. Each of the postulated acquisition structures is evaluated against the NASA acquisition requirements and the synthesized commonality best practice. The evaluation demonstrates that current NASA acquisition strategies are geared towards commonality through reuse of existing components and systems, and forward-thinking investment in future commonality opportunities is unlikely. New strategies which involve less emphasis on competition between contractors in favor of greater continuity with experienced contractors are recommended to improve commonality. However, the commonality advantages from such strategies may be offset in a wider perspective by the costs of using such noncompetitive acquisition structures.by Anthony C. Wicht.S.M

Application and management of commonality within NASA systems

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-180).Commonality can be defined as the sharing of assets such as components, designs, processes, technologies, interfaces, and/or infrastructure across systems. Through commonality, NASA has the opportunity to develop, produce, and operate systems more efficiently, thus reducing their life cycle costs. However, the benefits gained from commonality greatly depend on how commonality is managed, i.e. how successfully the identification of opportunities is managed and how those opportunities are subsequently evaluated and implemented. The goal of this research is to observe how commonality is managed within NASA systems and to identify the best practices and key challenges for the management of commonality. To that end, three case studies were conducted of past and present NASA systems: the Constellation Space Suit System (CSSS), the International Standard Payload Rack (ISPR), and the Core Flight-Software System (CFS). Each of the case studies was chosen because it offered a diverse view into the management of commonality, by differing in the program in which the system was developed, the type of system that was developed, and the method used to develop the system. The case studies offer a detailed look into current management practices within NASA and allow for comparisons to be made with seven industry case studies, previously conducted by Boas (2008).(cont.) The three NASA case studies showed that two trends that were consistently observed in the industry cases (life cycle offsets and divergence) also exist within NASA systems. In addition, the management approaches were observed to be common between NASA and industry. In conducting the NASA case studies, several management methods were identified that can encourage the successful application of commonality, including: the organizational structure, the level of management support, the type of contract, and design competencies. Each of the observed management methods are discussed in the thesis within the scope of the individual case study and in the broader scope of all three systems in the cross-case analysis. In each of the three NASA case studies and seven industry case studies, it was observed that the evaluation of commonality was often either overlooked or reduced to notional or qualitative analysis. To address this problem, both a deterministic economic cost model and an economic cost model that evaluates commonality as a Real Option were developed to better evaluate the systems. Evaluating commonality as a Real Option allows management to consider uncertainties and flexibility in the system. Both methods of evaluating opportunities for commonality are applied using information from the CSSS case study as an example.by Richard Alexander Rhodes.S.M

Improving enterprise decision-making : the benefits of metric commonality

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 94-97).The objective of this research is to identify a new approach in managing, and making internal program-level decisions from, externally tracked performance metrics. Industry observations indicate the increasing challenge for program managers and internal development teams to identify performance improvement opportunities for products, services, organizations, etc., in an effective and efficient manner based on tracked performance metrics by external customers. Literature on metrics; performance measurement selection, systems, and frameworks; the concept of commonality; and designing across a life cycle is assessed and helps generate a new concept of commonalizing metrics across an operating life cycle to address this issue. It is hypothesized that despite the uniqueness of each external stakeholder, the tracking of a small set of common performance metrics at different operating life cycle phases across all external stakeholders would result in more accurate decision-making in identifying the most value-added performance improvement opportunities, increased enterprise-level communication, and lower incurred costs. A detailed case study of a technical product with multiple customers whose external data drives internal program decisions is presented to address (1) if metric commonality is plausible, (2) what the expected benefits are of implementing this new decision-making tool, and (3) how these common metrics would change over the course of the product's operating life cycle. A historical data analysis and initial customer interviews established the architecture of the program's current state. Internal development team expert interviews and a second round of customer interviews were performed in an effort to identify an optimal set of common metrics the external stakeholders could track for this program. Also identified were proper adoption attributes that would need to be considered to not only drive this new decision-making tool through this enterprise, but also to address some of the barriers that influenced the program's current state. The triangulation of the historical, developer, and customer data sets produced a list of less than a dozen common, value-added metrics for this program, with most of these metrics consistently measured throughout the operating life cycle, supporting the plausibility of this new decision-making tool. Having all stakeholders recording the same metrics also improves the efficiency and effectiveness of making the right product improvement decisions, as well as increases communication within the product community. The study also provides insight into the importance of the voice of the customer, the relationship between metrics and strategic planning, the connection to lean thinking, and a new performance measurement framework; and is considered an excellent starting point for future detailed studies in this area.by Alissa H. Friedman.S.M

Small Habitat Commonality Reduces Cost for Human Mars Missions

Most view the Apollo Program as expensive. It was. But, a human mission to Mars will be orders of magnitude more difficult and costly. Recently, NASA's Evolvable Mars Campaign (EMC) mapped out a step-wise approach for exploring Mars and the Mars-moon system. It is early in the planning process but because approximately 80% of the total life cycle cost is committed during preliminary design, there is an effort to emphasize cost reduction methods up front. Amongst the options, commonality across small habitat elements shows promise for consolidating the high bow-wave costs of Design, Development, Test and Evaluation (DDT&E) while still accommodating each end-item's functionality. In addition to DDT&E, there are other cost and operations benefits to commonality such as reduced logistics, simplified infrastructure integration and with inter-operability, improved safety and simplified training. These benefits are not without a cost. Some habitats are sub-optimized giving up unique attributes for the benefit of the overall architecture and because the first item sets the course for those to follow, rapidly developing technology may be excluded. The small habitats within the EMC include the pressurized crew cabins for the ascent vehicle

A scalable hydrogen propulsion system for civil transport aircraft

The aim of this research was to explore the application of engineering systems evolvability analysis techniques in devising potential scalable hydrogen propulsion systems for future civil transport aircraft. Baseline and derivative aircraft concepts were generated for a medium-sized long-range aircraft, with the derivative options having different levels of hydrogen incorporated in a dual-fuel arrangement (with separate hydrogen and kerosene turbofans), as well as potential turboelectric propulsion with boundary layer ingestion. Commonality between each baseline-derivative pair was then estimated, which could be used to predict the derivative development cost savings that could potentially be obtained when working from a specific baseline. The performance and cost results enabled different future scenarios to be explored. It was shown that developing the future concepts based on an existing state-of-the aircraft as baseline can offer considerable cost savings, as opposed to designing a clean sheet version. The importance of the baseline configuration selection in reducing the development cost for the different hydrogen configurations was also highlighted