Evolutionary Strategies in Product Development
Presented By
Bobak Ferdowsi
Lean Aerospace Initiative / MIT
March 26, 2003
An LAI Plenary Conference
Motivation
•
Air Force realized the need for better development
strategies
• Increasing costs and cycle times for new products
• Technology innovation cycle times shorter than product cycle times
• “When it takes so long, it just can’t be state of the art”
--Dr. Sambur, Assistant SAF/AQ
• Lack of user feedback in product development meant products were
less useful
•
•
Evolutionary Acquisition with Spiral Development
• Deliver partial capabilities in shorter time
• Increase user feedback
Seven research projects at LAI related to Evolutionary
Acquisition
web.mit.edu/lean
©Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bobak Ferdowsi- 032603 2
1
Process
•
•
•
•
•
•
Product
Planning
Product planning
• Based on market and user needs
Concept planning
• Approach selection
System Design
• Architecture development, interfaces
Detailed Design
• Subsystem development
System Testing
• Evaluation of product to perform required tasks
Product Delivery
• Production and delivery to user
Concept
Planning
System
Design
Detailed
Design
System
Testing
Product
Delivery
Product development processes include
various combinations of these phases
©Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bobak Ferdowsi- 032603 3
web.mit.edu/lean
Waterfall
Product
Planning
Concept
Planning
Stage-gates
System
Design
Iteration
occurs
in each
phase
ÿ Variants:
ÿ
ÿ
Detailed
Design
ÿ
System
Testing
ÿ
Product
Delivery
Parallel waterfall
Overlapping waterfall
Evolutionary
prototyping & delivery
Design to schedule &
budget
Implies static requirements
ÿ Primarily mitigates technical risks
ÿ Can address some user uncertainty
ÿ Can address schedule and cost risks
web.mit.edu/lean
©Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bobak Ferdowsi- 032603 4
2
Incremental Delivery
Product
ÿ Variants:
Planning
Concept
ÿ Pre-Planned Product
Planning
Improvement (P3I)
System
ÿ Block upgrades (to some
Design
degree)
Detailed
Detailed
Detailed
Design
Design
Design
System
System
System
Testing
Testing
Testing
Product
Product
Product
Delivery 2
Delivery 1
Delivery 3
ÿ Primarily mitigates technical and schedule risks
ÿ Can address some user uncertainty
©Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bobak Ferdowsi- 032603 5
web.mit.edu/lean
Spiral
Concept Development /
Analysis of Alternatives
System Design
1
2
Start
3
Use & Learn
Delivery
Integration & Testing
Prototyping
ÿ Primarily mitigates user uncertainty
ÿ Relies on mature technology
web.mit.edu/lean
©Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bobak Ferdowsi- 032603 6
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Process Summary
•
Product development process selection is
difficult:
•
•
Must consider a number of program attributes
• Product strategy
• Architecture
• External constraints
• Technology
• Uncertainty
• Practices
Research underway to provide a method for
selecting development strategies
web.mit.edu/lean
©Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bobak Ferdowsi- 032603 7
Final Thoughts
•
Vast majority of infrastructure is set up for waterfall
and traditional processes
• Infrastructure must enable process selection and use of new
development strategies
• New processes are challenging--must master practices to
effectively use them in an evolutionary environment
•
Tradeoffs
• Each process addresses various uncertainties, but at a cost
•
No clear method for selecting among the various
processes
web.mit.edu/lean
©Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bobak Ferdowsi- 032603 8
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