Title: A DSM-based project-scheduling system for collaborative product development

Authors: Ming-Chyuan Lin, Kuohsiang Chen, Wunching Chang, Chun-Hsien Chen

Addresses: Department of Industrial Design, National Chen Kung University, 1 University Road, 701 Tainan, Taiwan. ' Department of Industrial Design, National Chen Kung University, 1 University Road, 701 Tainan, Taiwan. ' Department of Vehicle Engineering, Mingchi University of Technology, 84 Gungjuan Road, Taishan, 24301 Taipei, Taiwan. ' School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798 Singapore

Abstract: Scheduling and managing a collaborative New Product Development (NPD) process for large projects is a difficult exercise that requires much effort and experience. This paper presents a prototype web-enabled scheduling system that incorporates Design Structure Matrix (DSM) to support NPD projects in a collaborative product development environment. The prototype system is implemented on the internet, based on an agent architecture. Basically, it is able to assist collaborative NPD projects in obtaining an appropriate execution sequence of project tasks, generating a project schedule effectively, monitoring the development process, and handling the dynamic events such as task delay and iteration. An illustrative example is provided.

Keywords: new product development; NPD; design structure matrix; DSM; collaborative product development; project scheduling; agent architecture; internet; project scheduling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSPM.2007.016309

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, 2007 Vol.3 No.4, pp.183 - 194

Published online: 16 Dec 2007 *

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