System dynamics approach to understand the role of information technology in the evolution of next generation integrated product development systems

For the automotive industry, to be competitive in the market place has to devise many strategies. Some of the prominent strategies include and are not limited to, reduction of development costs by moving in-house work to its suppliers, reduction of PD cycle time by mimicking some of the industry's successful PD processes. Some companies are also devising some complex strategies like Zero-Prototype development using computer aided prototyping and testing, currently prevalent in the aerospace and naval industries, and more recently making a move into the Lean PD systems and processes to avoid waste and increase efficiency. However, to introduce such lean PD systems, with reduced PD cycle time, into a complex organization with many internally developed IT systems, processes and tools is a huge challenge. The organization needs to adapt to these lean environments not just structurally but also culturally. To design a lean PD organization (system) the decision makers have to foresee and understand how the system of systems may react to the change before they are implemented and/or executed. In the past couple of decades IT systems have been a primary enabler for PD work flow processes.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Somavarapu, Sashi K. (Sashi Kanth)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Nelson P. Repenning.

• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33419

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33419