This paper reviews the breadth of complexity of the design process, products, manufacturing, and business. Manufacturing is facing unprecedented challenges due to increased variety, market volatility and distributed global manufacturing. A fundamental residue of globalization and market uncertainty is the increasing complexity of manufacturing, technological and economic systems. The nature and sources of complexity in these areas are reviewed and complexity modeling and management approaches are discussed. Enterprises that can mitigate the negative aspects of complexity while managing its positives should thrive on the continuous change and increasing complexity. To reap these benefits in the future, manufacturing companies need to not only adopt flexible technical solutions but must also effectively innovate and manage complex socio-technical systems.

Complexity in engineering design and manufacturing

The design structure matrix (DSM), also called the dependency structure matrix, has become a widely used modeling framework across many areas of research and practice. The DSM brings advantages of simplicity and conciseness in representation, and, supported by appropriate analysis, can also highlight important patterns in system architectures (design structures), such as modules and cycles. A literature review in 2001 cited about 100 DSM papers; there have been over 1000 since. Thus, it is useful to survey the latest DSM extensions and innovations to help consolidate progress and identify promising opportunities for further research. This paper surveys the DSM literature, primarily from archival journals, and organizes the developments pertaining to building, displaying, analyzing, and applying product, process, and organization DSMs. It then addresses DSM applications in other domains, as well as recent developments with domain mapping matrices (DMMs) and multidomain matrices (MDMs). Overall, DSM methods are becoming more mainstream, especially in the areas of engineering design, engineering management, management/organization science, and systems engineering. Despite significant research contributions, however, DSM awareness seems to be spreading more slowly in the realm of project management.

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Design Structure Matrix Extensions and Innovations: A Survey and New Opportunities

This paper presents a decision support system (DSS) for the modeling and management of project risks and risk interactions. This is a crucial activity in project management, as projects are facing a growing complexity with higher uncertainties and tighter constraints. Existing classical methods have limitations for modeling the complexity of project risks. For example, some phenomena like chain reactions and loops are not properly taken into account. This will influence the effectiveness of decisions for risk response planning and will lead to unexpected and undesired behavior in the project. Based on the concepts of DSS and the classical steps of project risk management, we develop an integrated DSS framework including the identification, assessment and analysis of the risk network. In the network, the nodes are the risks and the edges represent the cause and effect potential interactions between risks. The proposed simulation-based model makes it possible to re-evaluate risks and their priorities, to suggest and test mitigation actions, and then to support project manager in making decisions regarding risk response actions. An example of application is provided to illustrate the utility of the model.

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A simulation-based risk network model for decision support in project risk management

Many models of the design and development process have been published over the years, representing it for different purposes and from different points of view. This article contributes an organising framework that clarifies the topology of the literature on these models and thereby relates the main perspectives that have been developed. The main categories of model are introduced. Their contexts, advantages, and limitations are considered through discussion of selected examples. It is demonstrated that the framework integrates coverage of earlier reviews and as such provides a new perspective on the literature. Finally, key characteristics of design and development process models are discussed considering their applications in practice, and opportunities for further research are suggested. Overall, the article should aid researchers in positioning new models and new modelling approaches in relation to state-of-the-art. It may also be of interest to practitioners and educators seeking an overview of developments in this area.

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Process models in design and development

Product development of technical products is characterized by a steady increase of complexity. Particularly, modern business strategies focusing on customization ask for enhanced possibilities of complexity management. Common methods mostly address selected viewpoints of dependencies between domains (i.e. classes of similar elements of a system) and only provide limited support for the analysis, control, and optimization of complex structures.
The thesis tackles these shortcomings and develops an approach based on graph theory for the management of complex structures in domain-spanning networks. The suggested Multiple-Domain Matrix supports the entire process of complexity management including the information acquisition, the network analysis and the derivation of specific actions.
The application of the findings allows for robust product design, efficient project coordination and finally results in development time and cost savings.

https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/doc/622288/file.pdf

Structural Awareness in Complex Product Design

Product design is characterized by a steady increase in complexity. The main focus of this book is a structural approach on complexity management. This means, system structures are considered in order to address the challenge of complexity in all aspects of product design. Structures arise from the complex dependencies of system elements. Thus, the identification of system structures provides access to the understanding of system behavior in practical applications. The book presents a methodology that enables the analysis, control and optimization of complex structures, and the applicability of domain-spanning problems. The methodology allows significant improvements on handling system complexity by creating improved system understanding on the one hand and optimizing product design that is robust for system adaptations on the other hand. Developers can thereby enhance project coordination and improve communication between team members and as a result shorten development time. The practical application of the methodology is described by means of two detailed examples.

Structural Complexity Management: An Approach for the Field of Product Design

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Structural Complexity Management

Besides personal means of method transfer in terms of individual coaching by trainers or consultants, impersonal transfer of product development method know-how by methoddatabases or further multimedia approaches is gaining in importance. Transfer of method know-how basically includes supporting the user in the fields of selection, adaptation and application of product development methods. In order to improve existing supporting systems, we analyse the basic mechanisms for method implementation especially focusing on the selection of product development methods. Further on we specify requirements for a problem, situation and user specific method adaptation and application. The elaborated results are introduced to a method model which is able to serve as a structural basis for a selection, adaptation and application supporting system. We identify method attributes as the key to link methods in-between each other. Thereby sets of method building blocks can be built up, which support the user by providing a tool for a guided navigation within the “methodcontent”.

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Supporting the selection, adaptation and application of methods in product development

In the practice of product design, the efficient management of complexity has increasingly gained importance. This not only concerns technical components and their assembly into comprehensive products, but, in fact, in increasing the market, process and organizational complexity also directly affects any engineering challenges. As all of these aspects are related in practical applications, avoiding and reducing complexity in one aspect does not automatically result in optimum results in a comprehensive context. Rather specifically selected strategies of complexity management represent a crucial competitive factor for successful engineering in a complex environment.

Complexity in the context of product design

In order to solve a problem resulting from structural complexity, the scope and implied aspects of the system model in question must be clearly defined. This means that system domains, the level of detail of the elements, and the meaning of the dependencies considered must be determined. Based on this, the requirements for the subsequent step of information acquisition can then be derived. A clear system definition is necessary for the visual and computational model representation and is indispensable for the application of analysis methods.

Thomas Braun

Papers

Structural Complexity Management: An Approach for the Field of Product Design

Structural Complexity Management

Supporting the selection, adaptation and application of methods in product development

Complexity in the context of product design

Modeling the Multiple-Domain Matrix