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Time drivers for engineering development programs / by James Matthew Rehberger.

by Rehberger, James Matthew.

Electronic apparatus and appliances -- Design and construction

ix, 218 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.

Opinions expressed -- Introduction -- A new basis for development time drivers -- Strategy development for change management -- Tools for change management -- Restructuring for change management -- General conclusions -- References.

Most electronic product development programs are rarely completed on time and regularly run over budget. Numerous scheduling delays and cost overruns continue to occur despite advances in project planning tools, management techniques and theories. Many new products will fail to achieve some if not all of their strategic business objectives. These aspects of electronic product development are completely independent of industry segment, corporation or project complexity.

Management's feeling of frustration continues to grow regardless of the overwhelming amount of evidence supporting better organizational structure, overcoming internal barriers and adopting flexible management philosophies. The objective of the investigation leading to this thesis identifies, discusses and develops strategies for surmounting many of the obstacles preventing concurrency and rapid product development. For many organizations, attaining and sustaining a decisive lead and competitive advantage in these areas will always remain exceptionally difficult. This occurs because of the preconceived and generalized opinion that many of the problems associated with modern electronic development processes are intrinsically simple and quickly corrected.

The composition of this paper closely follows that required to develop and implement an effective strategy for improving the product development process. The introduction provides the reader with a basic overview of traditional development processes. It offers a better understanding of the typical problem resolution tactics associated with some product development groups.

The second section of this paper proposes a new basis for product development time drivers and time management issues. This section describes the author's investigation into the organizational behavior of modern product development groups. The discussion also reflects a characteristically different point of view by presenting a bottom up, rather than management's traditional top down perspective.

The third section of this paper formulates a generalized strategy for improving the product development process. The strategy is developed from areas of significant opportunity and an intelligent understanding of the barriers hindering speedy product development. The strategy is implemented gradually over time in two distinct phases.

The first phase is discussed in the fourth section. It describes a practical set of development tools and techniques for encouraging the practice of more effective project management. The optimal set of projects can be developed and managed successfully using aggregate project planning techniques, return maps, ROI, risk/sensitivity analysis, phased development approaches and management by deliverables.

The second phase is discussed in the last section. It describes the change management restructuring process needed to implement the proposed strategy. One of management's greatest challenges over the next few years will be to facilitate more efficient interaction between people and processes at the corporate level. Tomorrow's work force must be capable of forming cross functional alliances at all levels within the organization to solve their problems efficiently and effectively.

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