The Differential and Contingent Impact of Concurrency on New Product Development Project Performance: A Holistic Examination*

This article comprehensively examines how the four facets of new product development (NPD) concurrency, consisting of process and product concurrency groupings, influence NPD project performance under the five contextual conditions of (i) location of product in family stream, (ii) project size, (iii) stage in the product life cycle, (iv) innovativeness of the product, and (v) predictability of market demand. Using data from a large sample of NPD projects in multiple industries, there is support for this hypothesized four‐faceted structure of concurrency, consisting of process and product concurrency groupings, thereby contributing new knowledge to the concurrency literature. All four facets of concurrency display a contingent impact on NPD project performance, even though individual effects vary according to the specific contextual variable under consideration. In particular, the process concurrency facet of dynamic iterative routines was universally effective across all five contextual variables, while the product concurrency facet of cross‐functional coordination was effective in significantly influencing at least one NPD project measure. This article also reports similar, but less strong, contingency patterns, with respect to the process concurrency facet of the implementation of downstream coordination and the product concurrency facet of the use of computer‐based integrated design tools. Theoretical and practical implications of our results are also offered.     

Completing projects on-time: how project acceleration affects new product development

How do accelerated time goals affect the execution and completion of new product development (NPD) projects? This research addresses this question as it relates to project content, project leadership, and aspects of design integration. Research data were drawn from a survey of 131 completed NPD projects from firms representing a wide variety of manufacturing industries. The results of an analysis of both intentionally accelerated and normally-paced projects suggest that project acceleration interacts with project content, leadership, and integration variables to affect on-time performance differently across NPD project types, sometimes in surprising ways. Two primary effects are posited to explain these inconsistent effects. First, NPD acceleration tends to increase the difficulty of the project by introducing new procedures and by reducing schedule slack. These changes are thought to exacerbate project content factors and to raise the value of NPD leadership and integration techniques. At the same time, an intentional acceleration strategy is thought to signal increased priority for the project, causing development personnel to make more careful decisions, and to more effectively implement new technologies and techniques. The article discusses the implications of the findings for future research and practice.     

An integrated functional representation of concurrent engineering

A time-based competitive strategy is a driving force for enterprises that are striving to be competitive on a global basis. One of the methods to help in the time compression of the product development life cycle is concurrent engineering. Concurrent engineering is not only an approach that is used by the engineering function of the organization, but it is also one that crosses organizational boundaries. In this article an integrated functional model of the concurrent engineering process and its relationship with the product development life cycle is presented. A functional comparison to the traditional engineering approach for product development is also provided.     

Designing Products for Adaptability: Insights from Four Industrial Cases

Developing products that are more easily adaptable to future requirements can increase their overall value. Product adaptability is largely determined by choices about product architecture, especially modularity. Because it is possible to be too modular and/or inappropriately modular, deciding how and where to be modular in a cost‐effective way is an important managerial decision. In this article, we gather data from four case studies to model effects of firms’ product architecture decisions at the component level. We optimize an architecture adaptability value (AAV) measure that accounts for both the benefits of more architecture options and the costs of interfaces. The optimal architecture prompted each firm to rearchitect an existing product to increase its expected future profitability. Several insights emerged from the case evidence during this research. (i) Although decomposing an architecture into an increasing number of modules increases product adaptability, the amount of modularity is an insufficient predictor of the adaptability value of a system. AAV, which also accounts for interface costs, provides an improved measure of appropriate modularity. (ii) Managers can influence the path of architectural evolution in the direction of increased value. This influence may diminish but does not disappear as products become more mature. Also, modularity and innovations coevolved, as the new modularizations suggested by AAV optimization prompted and guided searches for further innovations. (iii) When presented with the concepts of options, interface costs, and AAV, the firms’ designers and managers were initially skeptical. However, in each case, the modelers were able to rearchitect an actual product not only with increased AAV by our model (theoretical improvement) but also with actual future benefits for their firm. Postproject reports from each firm confirmed that the AAV modeling and optimization approaches were indeed helpful, equipping them to increase the adaptability, cost‐efficiency, lifespan, and overall value of actual products. The evidence suggests that firms can benefit from designing products for adaptability, but that how they do so matters. This study expands our understanding of modularity and adaptability by illuminating managerial decisions and insights about appropriate approaches to each.     

重复性项目调度模型的时差分析

时差分析作为工程项目管理的核心内容之一,被广泛用于处理延期索赔和工期压缩等实际工程问题。RSM是针对重复性项目而设计的一类新的项目调度工具,在项目计划与调度领域受到广泛关注。在RSM中,目前尚未有普适的时差分析方法,并且已有的时差概念均要求工序必须连续施工。在考虑工序间断的情况下,区分了RSM中子工序使用时差的两种方式,即"调整开始时间"和"延长工期"。通过将CPM网络中的经典时差概念（包括总时差、自由时差和安全时差）与RSM相结合,提出了适用于RSM的新时差概念体系,以及对应的时间参数和时差计算方法。一个管道工程项目验证了算法的有效性。与已有文献相比,本文提出的时差分析方法具有更强的普适性。     

Stiff surprise on stiffness: an incident in product development in an alliance setting

An incident that occurred in a product development project is analyzed to see how participants cope differently with surprising situations. Variety in coping generates cognitive dissonance in the project team, which means that the situation not only is complex for the individual team member but that it is difficult to trace, here and now, causal chains on a collective level. The situation is aggravated if the problem occurs in an alliance setting, as more consultation is required to trace deviations from the expected and reach agreements on solutions. Furthermore, if the alliance is between companies in the car industry, with its articulated brand values, coping with surprises can be extremely stressful, with time schedules and budgets under pressure. This analysis was made possible by the authors being permitted to video-film project management meetings and project members responding, individually, to the playback of a video sequence from a meeting they attended with the attached question “What is going on here?”     

The role of product design in designer-buyer-supplier interface

This paper advocates early supplier involvement in the early phases of product design and development in a concurrent engineering environment. A concurrent engineering environment and the benefits of such involvement are explained in detail. The paper then focuses on facilitating an interface and collaboration among designer, supplier, and buyer at three planning horizons: strategic, intermediate, and tactical with respect to product design and development. A set of propositions and corollaries for each area of interface at each level of planning are proposed. These propositions and corollaries are intended to effectively accomplish the design-based sourcing and early supplier involvement. Then, each proposition is evaluated in practice and the extent of difference from theory to practice is discussed. Finally, concluding remarks and an assessment are presented.     

受弹性时间段和价值波动双重影响的项目组合选择问题研究

许多现有的项目组合模型都认为项目集合可以在固定的计划期完成,但是在实际的项目执行过程中,决策者为了使得高收益的项目纳入项目集合中或者放弃风险高的项目来释放更多的资金,会选择对项目组合固定的计划期进行灵活性调整。同时,考虑到项目未来价值的不确定性,本文利用实物期权的二叉树模型给出了价值波动的公式,进而建立了同时受弹性时间段和价值波动影响的项目组合选择的新模型,对传统的计算项目价值的净现值法进行补充。通过GAMS/BARON对算例进行求解,验证了模型的合理性和有效性。结果表明：考虑弹性时间段和价值波动的影响会给更符合企业长期的发展战略,给企业带来更大的收益,该模型也为处理不确定情况下的项目组合问题提供了新思路和新方法。     

Paying for growth: The impacts of rapid growth

Fiscal Impact Analyses (FIA's) are the quantification of the expected public-sector fiscal effects (revenues and expenditures) generated by a project. FIA's are exerting greater influence on recent engineering projects and developments than previously experienced. The federal government as well as many state and local governments are requiring FIA's before making decisions on engineering projects. FIA 's in today's engineering environment need to be flexible and capable of assessing the impact resulting from changes in the project's scope or timing without extensive revisions or time delays. A microcomputer-based FIA model is an effective way of meeting these needs. Engineer managers should be aware of the capabilities of a microcomputer-based FIA model and how it can assist them during the project approval process, when negotiating impact payments and payments in lieu of taxes, and in setting development fees.     

组织环境对工程项目成本管理影响研究——基于中铁二局的案例分析

工程项目成本管理是施工企业生存发展的关键所在。本文从组织环境这一宽泛的视角,探讨组织内外部环境中对工程项目成本管理产生影响的重要因素。以中铁二局为研究对象,通过实地访谈研究识别企业组织环境对工程项目成本管理的影响因素。本文应用扎根理论,通过对访谈数据逐级编码分析,构建了基于组织结构、控制体系和社会关系等三大支持系统的"3S"理论,从而揭示组织环境对工程项目成本管理的作用机制和对企业成本管理的意义。     

基于贝叶斯网络的并发型突发事件链建模方法

现实情形中，由于致灾因子和作用对象的相似性，初始突发事件的发生易引发多个次生事件并发及耦合，致使事件的演化发展及可能造成的损失具有更大的不确定性。然而，现有的突发事件链式演化分析多运用串发型事件链，对于并发型突发事件存在适用性较低的问题。针对上述问题，本文将突发事件抽象描述为以输入、状态和输出属性为组成要素，通过属性要素间的作用关系构成的复杂系统，进而从属性层面分析事件间的关联关系；以贝叶斯网络为建模工具，识别并发型突发事件间具有的因果关系和耦合关系，给出事件贝叶斯网络关联方法，构建并发型突发事件链模型；基于历史数据获取网络节点间的先验概率信息，运用贝叶斯网络推理算法实现并发型突发事件的演化分析；最后，通过实例验证本文方法在实际应用中的科学性及可行性，并通过对比分析阐明其在提高灾害损失预测精度方面具有一定的优势。     

Coordinating External Manufacturing of Product Modules*

Product modularization has changed gradually from mainly being a way to bring strategic flexibility into product design, to becoming a means to reach new suppliers in a globalized world. Use of external suppliers is facilitated by the “embedded coordination” brought by standardized module interfaces which reduce the interdependence between modules manufactured by different suppliers. However, the distance between design and manufacturing is increased by heavy reliance on suppliers, and requires coordination between design and manufacturing. Hence, this article aims to identify appropriate mechanisms to enable coordination of external manufacturing of product modules. The investigation is based on two case studies in one manufacturing company that has for long relied heavily on external suppliers. The case studies identify different means, coordination mechanisms, of handling the increased distance between design and manufacturing. In addition to organizational solutions, various intermediaries including especially the supply chain function act as bridges between design and manufacturing. The appropriate mechanism to use is decided by the character of the product and the degree of upgrading. We recommend openness to adaptation to situation dynamics rather than investment in optimizing the level of integration with a particular supplier.     

Internal and External Integration for Product Development: The Contingency Effects of Uncertainty,Equivocality, and Platform Strategy

Effective product development requires firms to unify internal and external participants. As companies attempt to create this integrated environment, two important questions emerge. Does a high level of internal integration lead to a higher level of external integration? In the context of product development, this study considers whether internal integration in the form of concurrent engineering practices affects the level of external integration as manifested by customer integration, supplier product integration, and supplier process integration. External integration, in turn, may influence competitive capabilities, namely product innovation performance and quality performance. Second, using contingency theory, do certain contextual variables moderate the linkages between integration strategy (external and internal) and performance? Specifically, this study considers whether uncertainty, equivocality, and platform development strategy change the relationships among internal integration, external integration, and competitive capabilities. Data collected from 244 manufacturing firms across several industries were used to test these research questions. The results indicate that both internal and external integration positively influence product innovation and quality and ultimately, profitability. With respect to contingency effects, the results indicate that equivocality moderates the relationships between integration and performance.     

子网络视角下项目群合同项目工期延误诊断模型研究

项目群工期延误诊断是项目群进度目标控制的一项重要任务。总时差可用于判断项目群中某项工作延误对项目群总工期的延误程度,但没有解决某项工作延误对其自身合同项目和后续合同项目工期延误程度的判断问题。本文根据多项目管理和项目群管理理论,通过引入项目群子网络,研究并构建了基于子网络的项目群结构。在此基础上,运用关键路径法（CPM）,系统地研究了因子网络中合同项目某工作工期延误对自身子网络以及项目群中后续子网络工期的影响,提出了子网络后主链定理以及前主链总时差定理,从而实现子网络视角下项目群合同项目工期延误的诊断分析。结合算例进行了具体阐述与应用。最后就如何应用人工智能算法实现项目群进度及其影响因素进行实时监控提出研究思路。本文研究成果为子网络承包商的工期延误责任划分以及索赔提供依据。     

Setting tolerance limits for statistical project control using earned value management

Project control has been a research topic since decades that attracts both academics and practitioners. Project control systems indicate the direction of change in preliminary planning variables compared with actual performance. In case their current project performance deviates from the planned performance, a warning is indicated by the system in order to take corrective actions.Earned value management/earned schedule (EVM/ES) systems have played a central role in project control, and provide straightforward key performance metrics that measure the deviations between planned and actual performance in terms of time and cost. In this paper, a new statistical project control procedure sets tolerance limits to improve the discriminative power between progress situations that are either statistically likely or less likely to occur under the project baseline schedule. In this research, the tolerance limits are derived from subjective estimates for the activity durations of the project. Using the existing and commonly known EVM/ES metrics, the resulting project control charts will have an improved ability to trigger actions when variation in a project׳s progress exceeds certain predefined thresholdsA computational experiment has been set up to test the ability of these statistical project control charts to discriminate between variations that are either acceptable or unacceptable in the duration of the individual activities. The computational experiments compare the use of statistical tolerance limits with traditional earned value management thresholds and validate their power to report warning signals when projects tend to deviate significantly from the baseline schedule.     

It's Only Temporary: Time Frame and the Dynamics of Creative Project Teams

The success of many knowledge‐intensive industries depends on creative projects that lie at the heart of their logic of production. The temporality of such projects, however, is an issue that is insufficiently understood. To address this, we study the perceived time frame of teams that work on creative projects and its effects on project dynamics. An experiment with 267 managers assigned to creative project teams with varying time frames demonstrates that, compared to creative project teams with a relatively longer time frame, project teams with a shorter time frame focus more on the immediate present, are less immersed in their task and utilize a more heuristic mode of information processing. Furthermore, we find that time frame moderates the negative effect of team conflict on team cohesion. These results are consistent with our theory that the temporary nature of creative projects shapes different time frames among project participants, and that it is this time frame that is an important predictor of task and team processes.     

A Risk Analysis Model in Concurrent Engineering Product Development

Concurrent engineering has been widely accepted as a viable strategy for companies to reduce time to market and achieve overall cost savings. This article analyzes various risks and challenges in product development under the concurrent engineering environment. A three‐dimensional early warning approach for product development risk management is proposed by integrating graphical evaluation and review technique (GERT) and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA). Simulation models are created to solve our proposed concurrent engineering product development risk management model. Solutions lead to identification of key risk controlling points. This article demonstrates the value of our approach to risk analysis as a means to monitor various risks typical in the manufacturing sector. This article has three main contributions. First, we establish a conceptual framework to classify various risks in concurrent engineering (CE) product development (PD). Second, we propose use of existing quantitative approaches for PD risk analysis purposes: GERT, FMEA, and product database management (PDM). Based on quantitative tools, we create our approach for risk management of CE PD and discuss solutions of the models. Third, we demonstrate the value of applying our approach using data from a typical Chinese motor company.     

Concurrent consideration of product design,process planning and production planning activities

In manufacturing engineering, product design, process planning and production planning activities are often considered independently. However, in order to effectively respond to changes in business situations, such as changes in demand forecast, product mix and technology, it is desirable to consider them concurrently. For this purpose, a large-scale linear programming model has been developed. The model considers minimization of the sum of processing cost, late shipment cost and inventory holding cost as the objective, and concurrently selects product designs, and generates process plans and production plans. The number of columns in the formulation can be large and, hence, an efficient column generation scheme is developed to solve the model. The model and solution procedure are illustrated with examples.     

资源受限下平行工序顺序对优化的0-1规划模型

资源受限是工程项目时刻都可能面对的挑战。由于资源限制,需要将原项目计划中相互之间无优先关系的平行工序调整为顺序工序。平行工序顺序化可导致项目工期延迟,因此需考虑如何使项目工期延迟最小。该平行工序顺序优化问题是项目调度问题,也是排列组合问题,通常难度很大,包括一些NP-hard问题。本文主要研究该问题的一类典型子问题——平行工序顺序对优化,即如何将项目中某2n个平行工序调整为n个顺序工序对,并且对项目工期的影响最小。该问题的总方案数可达到（2n）!/n!。本文借助工序网络（如CPM网络）,运用简单的时间参数量化了平行工序顺序化对项目工期的影响,进而降低问题的求解难度,建立了纯0-1规划模型。实验验证了该模型的求解效率,求解100个平行工序规模的问题平均耗时0.2605秒,而求解500个平行工序规模的问题平均耗时10.66秒。     

Project Success: A Multidimensional Strategic Concept

This article presents projects as powerful strategic weapons, initiated to create economic value and competitive advantage. It suggests that project managers are the new strategic leaders, who must take on total responsibility for project business results. Defining and assessing project success is therefore a strategic management concept, which should help align project efforts with the short- and long-term goals of the organization. While this concept seems simple and intuitive, there is very little agreement in previous studies as to what really constitutes project success. Traditionally, projects were perceived as successful when they met time, budget, and performance goals. However, many would agree that there is more to project success than meeting time and budget. The object of this study was to develop a multidimensional framework for assessing project success, showing how different dimensions mean different things to different stakeholders at different times and for different projects. Given the complexity of this question, a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods and two data sets were used. The analysis identified four major distinct success dimensions: (1) project efficiency, (2) impact on the customer, (3) direct business and organizational success, and (4) preparing for the future. The importance of the dimensions varies according to time and the level of technological uncertainty involved in the project. The article demonstrates how these dimensions should be addressed during the project’s definition, planning, and execution phases, and provides a set of guidelines for project managers and senior managers, as well as suggestions for further research.