Performance of Coupled Product Development Activities with a Deadline

Abstract

This paper explores the performance of coupled development tasks subject to a deadline constraint by proposing a performance generation model (PGM). The goal of the PGM is to develop insights about optimal strategies (i.e. sequential, concurrent, or overlapped) to manage coupled design tasks that share fixed amount of engineering resources subject to performance and deadline constraints. Model analysis characterizes the solution space for the coupled development problem. The solution space is used to explore the generation of product performance and the associated dynamic forces affecting concurrent development practices. We use these forces to explain conditions under which concurrency is a desirable strategy.