Reference Model and Methodology to Improve the Product Development Process-Edición Única

Abstract

Product development managers are looking for new ways to improve their product development process. Emerging concepts and solutions as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), which is based on Concurrent Engineering (CE), carries out this improvements, achieving reductions in time and cost in the product development process. However, there is a lack of a particular reference model and methodology to achieve a successful PLM implementation within companies. Enterprise Integration Engineering (EIE) is a reference model that can be used to develop a particular reference model for the product development process. This reference model for product development aligns the enterprise strategies with the use of product development tools in order to impact key performance indicators in the company. Also, EIE reference model helps to define strategies, evaluate performance measures, design/re-design processes and establish the enabling tools and technologies. However, a reference model doesn’t have a methodology to implement systematically these changes in the company. For this reason, Action Research (AR) is used to guide the improvement of the product development process, proposing changes in the resources, organization, functional (process model) and information model. AR is customized, defining specific activities for each cycle developed. It is necessary to demonstrate this methodology using a case study, which is used to validate the benefits of this methodology proposed. This case study is developed in a Mexican company, which have the interest to improve its product development process. Final Conclusions are described based on the experiences in the implementation of this methodology. These conclusions are based on the technological and human resources, information, organization and functional changes developed in the case study. Current Technologies can reach a complete Product Lifecycle Management, however previous works are demonstrated that just implement technological resources do not guarantee an improvement of the product development. For this reason, in this thesis is highlighted the necessity to use a methodology that also propose changes in the company organization and product development activities. Finally, Impacts and benefits to implement these improvements are evaluated.