Simulation of the New Product Development Process for Performance Improvement
用随机计算机模型，研究新产品开发中重叠与职能互动如何影响开发时间和人力投入，发现不同不确定性下应选择并行或串行工程。
This paper explores the linkages between key features of the new product development (NPD) process and NPD performance and suggests ways of designing the process to improve performance. Using a stochastic computer model, we examine, under varying uncertainty conditions, how the key features of overlapping and functional interaction affect the performance measures of development time and effort (total person-days for a project). Findings indicate that, first and foremost, whether or not overlapping occurs, increasing functional interaction eventually leads to a trade-off between development time and effort. Second, an “early-start-in-the-dark” approach of increasing overlapping with no functional interaction is inferior even to an “over-the-wall” approach. Third, increasing overlapping when some functional interaction exists is beneficial in low uncertainty and harmful in high uncertainty. Fourth, concurrent engineering (CE) is appropriate under low uncertainty, while a type of sequential engineering (SE), different than the “over-the-wall” approach, should be used under high uncertainty, and last, dedicated teams are suitable under high, and not low, uncertainty. We developed the model with the aid of a company and validated it against a published account of five case studies.