Information incorporation policies in product development

Jian Zhu, Ali A. Yassine, Ramavarapu S. Sreenivas

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

In the present paper, we develop a dynamic programming (DP) model of the product development (PD) process. We conceptualize PD as a sequence of decisions: whether to incorporate a piece of information that just arrived (i.e. became available) or wait longer. We, then, utilize this formulation to analyze several different situations depending on the type and nature of information being exchanged: external versus internal information, and stationary versus dynamic information. We derive optimal decision rules to determine whether (and when) to incorporate or not for each case. An analysis of the model results in several important findings. First, we must not incorporate all available information that is related to the design activity. Once the information collection exceeds certain value, the design team should stop collecting further information. Second, only when past design work accumulates a certain threshold value should the team include the latest information and perform rework. Large uncertainty of the information and large sensitivity of the design activity make the information less likely to be incorporated. Lastly, the managerial implications are discussed with several numerical examples.

Original languageEnglish
Pages219-230
Number of pages12
DOIs
StatePublished - 2004
Event2004 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference - Salt Lake City, UT, United States
Duration: 28 Sep 20042 Oct 2004

Conference

Conference2004 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySalt Lake City, UT
Period28/09/042/10/04

Keywords

  • Concurrent Engineering
  • Design Iteration
  • Information
  • Overlapping
  • Product Development

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