A methodology for prospective operational design co-ordination

Engineering companies are continually faced with the challenge of how best to utilise their design team given some design project. Decisions regarding how to distribute the project workload amongst the members of the design team are the responsibility of a project manager who, in order to do this, often relies upon previous experience and/or the support of some planning tool. Furthermore, a project manager rarely has the opportunity to assess the capability of the design team against the current work load in order to determine what, if any, alterations couldbe made to the team to facilitate appropriate reductions in project time and cost.This paper proposes a mathematical-based methodology aimed at identifying shortfalls in design teams, which if remedied would result in a more efficient project in terms of time and cost. The methodology provides a means of identifying those skills within the design team,with respect to the outstanding work load, in which improvements would have the greatest influence on reducing time and cost. In addition, the methodology employs a genetic algorithm for the purpose of scheduling tasks to be undertaken by potential design teams. The methodology is applied to two practical case studies provided by engineering industry.The first case study involves the assessment of a multi-disciplined design team consisting of single-skilled engineers. In contrast, the second case study entails the assessment of multiskilled engineers within a multi-disciplined design team. As a result of applying the methodology to the case studies, potential improvement to the design teams are identified and, subsequently, evaluated by observing their effects

Operational design co-ordination : an agent based approach

Operational design co-ordination has been identified as the basis for an approach to engineering design management that is more comprehensive than those that currently exist. As such, an integrated and holistic approach to operational design co-ordination has been developed that enables design to be managed in a coherent, appropriate and timely manner. Furthermore, the approach has been implemented within an agent-based software system, called the Design Co-ordination System, which has been applied to an industrial case study involving the computational design analysis of turbine blades. This application demonstrates that managing and adjusting in real-time in an operationally co-ordinated manner enables reductions in the time taken to complete the turbine blade design process to be achieved

A Collaborative Project Management Approach and a Framework for Its Supporting Systems

The project management (PM) paradigm has changed during the past decade due to the globalization of business and advancement of information technology (IT). Increasingly, projects involve members from different geographical locations more than at any other time in history. Traditional PM methods may be inadequate to manage distributed projects, and new information systems are needed to support distributed PM. This article provides the rationale for a collaborative PM approach to manage distributed projects and proposes a conceptual framework for the collaborative PM software development. The objective is to present a collaborative PM framework that can guide further research and development in this challenging area

Co-creating corporate knowledge with a Wiki

Wikis have a growing reputation on the open Internet for producing evolving stores of shared knowledge. However, such democratic systems are often treated with suspicion within corporations for management, legal, social, and other reasons. This article describes a field study of a corporate Wiki that has been developed to capture, and make available, organisational knowledge in a large manufacturing company as an initiative of their Knowledge Management (KM) program. As this approach to KM is a controversial and rapidly changing phenomenon, a Q Methodology research approach was selected to uncover employees- subjective attitudes to the Wiki. Activity Theory was used to provide a deeper interpretation of the findings of the Q-study. The results are enabling the firm to more fully exploit the potential of the Wiki as a ubiquitous tool for successful tacit and explicit knowledge management as more employees are encouraged to participate in a process of cocreating the store of corporate knowledge. The article also demonstrates how meaningful and rigorous research on this new democratic direction of corporate KM should continue

Integrated information model for managing the product introduction process

The thesis proposes an integrated product introduction (PI) information model for managing the product introduction process in an efficient manner. Through the process of product introduction, ideas and needs are converted to the information from which technical systems and products can be made and sold. Two critical factors for its success are the management of the product introduction activities, and the quality and functionality of its output (i.e. the product) which itself depends on the quality of the PI process. The process is as effective as the decisions made within it, and as efficient as the speed with which the information required for each decision is made available. In order to improve the efficiency of the management of the project in meeting its diverse targets (project time, project cost, product cost and uparrow product functionality), a model that integrates the targets would be essential in relating the activities of the project to their outcomes. Existing information models in related areas such as design, product development, project management, computer aided design and manufacturing consider some of these targets, but not all of them simultaneously. Especially product functionality is not considered along with the other targets of the PI project. The project introduction information includes managerial and technical information and complex associations among these two categories. Its representation places a challenging and novel set of demands on database technology as it is evolving, distributed and heterogeneous. Existing information models do not address the link between the managerial and technical information, and their continual evolution. Based on a detailed analysis of its nature and content, the thesis presents a three dimensional model of the product introduction information from three related but different viewpoints:- (1) entity-relationship or objects, (2) intra-layer integration and (3) evolution, each capturing important aspects of the PI information, but all required for a complete description. The overall three dimensional information model includes the following layers:- from view 1 - product functionality, process or project, product introduction resources, product and information map; from view 2 - node, relationship, and organisation; from view 3 - meta-model, data model, and data. Each model describes one aspect of the product introduction information but contains references to the others. The building blocks of the information model are described using schema definitions

A model for enhancing software project management using software agent technology

The present study has originated from the realisation that numerous software development projects either do not live up to expectations or fail outright. The scope, environment and implementation of traditional software projects have changed due to various reasons such as globalisation, advances in computing technologies and, last but not least, the development and deployment of software projects in distributed, collaborative and virtual environments. As a result, traditional project management methods cannot and do not address the added complexities found in this ever-changing environment. In this study the processes and procedures associated with software project management (SPM) were explored. SPM can be defined as the process of planning, organising, staffing, monitoring, controlling and leading a software project. The current study is principally aimed at making a contribution to enhancing and supporting SPM. A thorough investigation into software agent computing resulted in the realisation that software agent technology can be regarded as a new paradigm that may be used to support the SPM processes. A software agent is an autonomous system that forms part of an environment, can sense the environment and act on it over a period of time, in pursuit of its own agenda. The software agent can also perceive, reason and act by selecting and executing an appropriate action. The unique requirements of SPM and the ways in which agent technology may address these were subsequently identified. It was concluded that agent technology is specifically suited to geographically distributed systems, large network systems and mobile devices. Agents provide a natural metaphor for support in a team environment where cooperation and the coordination of actions toward a common goal, as well as the monitoring and controlling of actions are strongly supported. Although it became evident that agent technology is indeed being applied to areas and sections of the SPM environment, it is not being applied to the whole spectrum, i.e. to all core and facilitating functions of SPM. If software agents were to be used across the whole spectrum of SPM processes, this could provide a significant advantage to software project managers who are currently using other contemporary methods. The "SPMSA" model (Software Project Management supported by Software Agents) was therefore proposed. This model aims to enhance SPM by taking into account the unique nature and changing environment of software projects. The SPMSA model is unique as it supports the entire spectrum of SPM functionality, thus supporting and enhancing each key function with a team of software agents. Both the project manager and individual team members will be supported during software project management processes to simplify their tasks, eliminate the complexities, automate actions and enhance coordination and communication. Virtual teamwork, knowledge management, automated workflow management and process and task coordination will also be supported. A prototype of a section of the risk management key function of the SPMSA model was implemented as `proof of concept'. This prototype may be expanded to include the entire SPMSA model and cover all areas of SPM. Finally, the SPMSA model was verified by comparing the SPM phases of the model to the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. These phases of the SPMSA model were furthermore compared to the basic phases of software development as prescribed by the ISO 10006:2003 standard for projects. In both cases the SPMSA model compared favourably. Hence it can be concluded that the SPMSA model makes a fresh contribution to the enhancement of SPM by utilising software agent technology.School of ComputingPh. D. (Computer Science