The Use of Intelligent Systems for Planning and Scheduling of Product Development Projects

AbstractThe paper investigates the use of intelligent systems to identify the factors that significantly influence the duration of new product development. These factors are identified on the basis of an internal database of a production enterprise and further used to estimate the duration of phases in product development projects. In the paper, some models and methodologies of the knowledge discovery process are compared and a method of knowledge acquisition from an internal database is proposed. The presented approach is dedicated to industrial enterprises that develop modifications of previous products and are interested in obtaining more precise estimates for project planning and scheduling. The example contains four stages of the knowledge discovery process including data selection, data transformation, data mining, and interpretation of patterns. The example also presents a performance comparison of intelligent systems in the context of variable reduction and preprocessing. Among data mining techniques, artificial neural networks and the fuzzy neural system are chosen to seek relationships between the duration of project phase and other data stored in the information system of an enterprise

FUZZY PROJECT SCHEDULING USING CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING

The paper aims to present an application of constraint rogramming techniques for project portfolio scheduling taking into account the imprecision in activity duration and cost. Data specification in the form of discrete α-cuts allows combining distinct and imprecise data, and implementing a constraint satisfaction problem with the use of constraint programming. Moreover using α-cuts, optimistic, pessimistic, and several intermediate scenarios concerning the project scheduling and cash flows can be obtained and considered in terms of different risk levels

Reducing the Total Product Cost at the Product Design Stage

Currently used decision support systems allow decision-makers to evaluate the product performance, including a net present value analysis, in order to enable them to make a decision regarding whether or not to carry out a new product development project. However, these solutions are inadequate to provide simulations for verifying a possibility of reducing the total product cost through changes in the product design phase. The proposed approach provides a framework for identifying possible variants of changes in product design that can reduce the cost related to the production and after-sales phase. This paper is concerned with using business analytics to cost estimation and simulation regarding changes in product design. The cost of a new product is estimated using analogical and parametric models that base on artificial neural networks. Relationships identified by computational intelligence are used to prepare cost estimation and simulations. A model of product development, production process, and admissible resources is described in terms of a constraint satisfaction problem that is effectively solved using constraint programming techniques. The proposed method enables the selection of a more appropriate technique to cost estimation, the identification of a set of possible changes in product design towards reducing the total product cost, and it is the framework for developing a decision support system. In this aspect, it outperforms current methods dedicated for evaluating the potential of a new product

A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR ALTERNATIVE PROJECT CHOICE BASED ON FUZZY NEURAL NETWORKS

The paper aims to present possibilities of management support by more precise estimates of critical tasks in projects through the use of intelligent techniques. In this paper a case is considered in which the client is forced to change the project specification after commencement of investment. To minimize the loss, the client may attempt to find other alternative solutions to complete the project. In view of expenditure and investment in progress, a group of alternative projects that fulfill the assumed constraints (e.g. financial and temporal) is sought. To support the choice of alternative projects, estimates of critical tasks within the project are calculated, using intelligent techniques as well as traditional statistical methods. The results are determined using the database of past projects that are found in the information systems of the enterprise

Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics in Identifying Opportunities for Improving Sustainable Manufacturing

Environmental issues and sustainability performance are more and more significant in today’s business world. A growing number of manufacturing companies are searching for changes to improve their sustainability in the areas of products and manufacturing processes. These changes should be introduced in the design process and affect the whole product life cycle. This paper is concerned with developing a method based on predictive and prescriptive analytics to identify opportunities for increasing sustainable manufacturing through changes incorporated at the product design stage. Predictive analytics uses parametric models obtained from regression analysis and artificial neural networks in order to predict sustainability performance. In turn, prescriptive analytics refers to the identification of opportunities for improving sustainability performance in manufacturing, and it is based on a constraint programming implemented within a constraint satisfaction problem (CSP). The specification of sustainability performance in terms of a CSP provides a pertinent framework for identifying all admissible solutions (if there are any) of the considered problem. The identified opportunities for improving sustainability performance are dedicated to specialists in product development, and aim to reduce both resources used in manufacturing and negative effects on the environment. The applicability of the proposed method is illustrated through reducing the number of defective products in manufacturing

Computational Intelligence for Estimating Cost of New Product Development

This paper is concerned with estimating cost of various new product development phases with the use of computational intelligence techniques such as neural networks and fuzzy neural system. Companies tend to develop many new products simultaneously and a limited project budget imposes the selection of the most promising new product development projects. The evaluation of new product projects requires cost estimation. The model of cost estimation contains product design, prototype manufacturing and testing, and it is specified in terms of a constraint satisfaction problem. The illustrative example presents comparative analysis of estimating product development cost using computational intelligence techniques and multiple regression model

Project Parameter Estimation on the Basis of an Erp Database

Nowadays, more and more enterprises are using Enterprise Resource Planning (EPR) systems that can also be used to plan and control the development of new products. In order to obtain a project schedule, certain parameters (e.g. duration) have to be specified in an ERP system. These parameters can be defined by the employees according to their knowledge, or can be estimated on the basis of data from previously completed projects. This paper investigates using an ERP database to identify those variables that have a significant influence on the duration of a project phase. In the paper, a model of knowledge discovery from an ERP database is proposed. The presented method contains four stages of the knowledge discovery process such as data selection, data transformation, data mining and interpretation of patterns in the context of new product development. Among data mining techniques, a fuzzy neural system is chosen to seek relationships on the basis of data from completed projects stored in an ERP system