System dynamics approach to understand the role of information technology in the evolution of next generation integrated product development systems

Abstract

For the automotive industry, to be competitive in the market place has to devise many strategies. Some of the prominent strategies include and are not limited to, reduction of development costs by moving in-house work to its suppliers, reduction of PD cycle time by mimicking some of the industry's successful PD processes. Some companies are also devising some complex strategies like Zero-Prototype development using computer aided prototyping and testing, currently prevalent in the aerospace and naval industries, and more recently making a move into the Lean PD systems and processes to avoid waste and increase efficiency. However, to introduce such lean PD systems, with reduced PD cycle time, into a complex organization with many internally developed IT systems, processes and tools is a huge challenge. The organization needs to adapt to these lean environments not just structurally but also culturally. To design a lean PD organization (system) the decision makers have to foresee and understand how the system of systems may react to the change before they are implemented and/or executed. In the past couple of decades IT systems have been a primary enabler for PD work flow processes.

(cont.) However, IT systems are so engraved in some PD organizations that they have turned into an engineering process mechanism. Also, some of the IT systems have served more than their life expectancy and in some cases cannot be decommissioned because these systems are so tightly coupled with the business processes. An understanding of the internal system dynamics of these deeply engraved IT systems in the PD life cycle will help the automotive industry executives (decision makers) and IT systems architects to make the right decision when designing and deploying the new PD systems or processes. This study provides an overview of how IT tools have evolved in the automotive industry. Extensive research was conducted to understand the different system dynamics tools used in industry - specifically in automotive product development and the software development areas. The study concludes with an explanation of how system dynamics tools can be used as a program planning and management tool.