Improving cross-functional communication about product architecture

Product architecture decisions, such as product modularity, component commonality, and design reuse, are important for balancing costs, responsiveness, quality, and other important business objectives. Firms are challenged with complex tradeoffs between competing design priorities, face the need to facilitate communication between functional silos, and to learn from past experiences. In this paper we present a qualitative approach for systematically evaluating the product architecture of an existing product or product family, linking the original architecture objectives and actual experiences. The intended contribution of our research is to present a framework that brings together a diverse set of product architecture-related decisions that are relevant from a business point of view (and not from a technical point of view) and a set of business performance elements. This framework can be used in workshop that improves cross-functional communication about the product architecture of an existing product family, and this results in practical improvement actions for future architecture design projects. Initial experiences with this approach have been obtained in pilots with Philips domestic appliances & personal care, and Philips consumer electronics

Cost management and cross-functional communication through product architectures

Product architecture decisions regarding, for example, product modularity, component commonality, and design re-use, are important for balancing costs, responsiveness, quality, and other important business objectives. Firms are challenged with complex tradeoffs between competing design priorities, face the need to facilitate communication between functional silos, and want to learn from past experiences. In this paper, we present a qualitative approach for systematically evaluating the product architecture of a product family, comparing the original architecture objectives and actual experiences. The intended contribution of our research is threefold: (1) to present a framework that brings together a diverse set of product architecture-related decisions and business performance; (2) to provide a set of metrics that operationalise the variables in the framework, and (3) to provide a workshop protocol that is based on the framework and the metrics. This workshop aims to improve cross-functional communication about the product architecture of an existing product family, and it results in practical improvement actions for future architecture design projects. Experiences with this approach are reported in pilots with Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care, and Philips Consumer Electronics

Systematic design of R&D performance measurement systems

For many years, Research and Development (R&D) activities were excluded from the routine performance measurement practices in many companies because performance measurement in this area of business was considered to be too difficult, or even counter-productive. Today, the pressure on R&D managers to be accountable for their contribution to company success is growing. At the same time, companies have to improve their increasingly complex R&D processes to meet challenges resulting from various changes in their business environment. Hence, the acceptance of performance measurement in R&D environments is growing, and the topic attracts increasing attention in literature. However, many R&D managers report that they are uncertain how to select the most meaningful metrics and measurement methods for their situation. Is a procedure developed for development processes also applicable to a basic research department? And is an often-recommended metric such as 'the percentage of sales generated by products introduced over the past five years' also a useful basis for making decisions on this year's bonuses for R&D staff? Such design problems are the subject of this book.Primarily based upon literature research, case studies of functioning R&D performance measurement systems, and four action case-studies of R&D measurement system design processes, all of which are described in this book, a contingency dependent measurement system design approach has been developed: the Performance measurement system Systematic Design Approach (PSDA). As is typical of this approach, the measurement system design is based on the key functions that a particular system is expected to fulfil in the performance control process. The system is further tailored to the peculiarities of the context to which it is applied, such as the type of R&D. To achieve this purpose, the general systematic design approach is augmented with taxonomies of options, and with selection guidelines for R&D performance measurement system design