Modeling Kanban Scheduling in
Systems of Systems
Alexey Tregubov, Jo Ann Lane
Outline
Modeling Kanban scheduling in System of Systems:
Why do we need to model?
Overview of KSS Network
Key aspects of Kanban scheduling technique
Simulation model
Example of KSS Network
Results & future work
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Why do we need to model?
Applications of modeling in System of System
environments:
Hypothesis testing
Process improvement
Business decision support
Cost and effort estimation
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Health care example of KSS Network
Dash
Execu ve/Stakeholder
Management
SLA establishment and monitoring
Strategic planning
Capability priori za on
Dash
Product/Domain Engineering
Dash
KSS
Users
KSS
Needs
Backlog*
User Support
Customer rela ons
Ini al Triage
Capability Engineering
Analyze needs and alterna ves
Refine capabili es
Develop requirements
Allocate requirements
Product Team
Dash
Product SE
Iden fy SW Features
Allocate features to SWDT
Integrate features into requirements
KSS
KSS
Form cross organiza onal teams
Cross-product and specialty engineering
KSS
SW Development Team
Validate and fully enable capabili es
Work Flow
Visibility
* All organiza ons can contribute to the Needs Backlog
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KSS
Pa ent Safety Domain Team
KSS
Network Domain Team
Key aspects of Kanban scheduling
Kanban principles embedded in prioritization algorithm:
Eliminate waste
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Minimize context switching
Limit work in progress
Make process more visible and transparent
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Kanban boards
Increased value delivered earlier
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Value-based work prioritization
Reduce governance overhead
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Key aspects of Kanban scheduling
(continued)
Work prioritization algorithm based on the following:
All work items (WI) prioritized according to their
business value
Every WI has a class of service: Standard, Important, Date
Certain, Critical Expedite
Limiting work in progress: work in progress is never
interrupted unless new work has a Critical class of
service
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Simulation model
Discrete event simulation:
 Inputs:
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Event scenario: a sequence of events that describes how
network evolves over course of their execution
Team configuration: structure of teams, resource/specialties
allocation
Simulation configuration: stop condition
Outputs:
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Sequence of network states
Analysis: various indicators of effectiveness
Simulation model: definitions
Discrete event simulation – network state & transition algorithm
Network state objects:
 Kanban board – demand log, work items in progress
 Team – group of resources (e.g. software development team)
 Work item – task that requires effort to completed
 Aggregation Nodes – logical group of work items, such as
requirements, capabilities
 Kanban network – teams, Kanban board, and their work items
Transition algorithm:
 Trigger events according to the scenario
 Apply work prioritization algorithm
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Health care example
Dash
Execu ve/Stakeholder
Management
SLA establishment and monitoring
Strategic planning
Capability priori za on
Dash
Product/Domain Engineering
Dash
KSS
Users
KSS
Needs
Backlog*
User Support
Customer rela ons
Ini al Triage
Capability Engineering
Analyze needs and alterna ves
Refine capabili es
Develop requirements
Allocate requirements
Product Team
Dash
Product SE
Iden fy SW Features
Allocate features to SWDT
Integrate features into requirements
KSS
KSS
Form cross organiza onal teams
Cross-product and specialty engineering
KSS
SW Development Team
Validate and fully enable capabili es
Work Flow
Visibility
* All organiza ons can contribute to the Needs Backlog
9
KSS
Pa ent Safety Domain Team
KSS
Network Domain Team
Example: capabilities to requirements to products
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Example: network structure & scenario
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Example: outputs
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Example: workflow
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Example: result analysis
Value:
1200.00
1000.00
800.00
random
600.00
kss
400.00
200.00
0.00
0
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5
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25
30
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Conclusion: results
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Simulation model
Simulator implementation: KSS Simulator
Two prioritization algorithms implemented
Several scenarios analyzed
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Conclusion: future work
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Pilot the Kanban scheduling with several organizations
Fine-tune the simulator using empirical data and
organizations feed back
Scale up the cases we run through the simulator
Refine and calibrate cost models
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Questions & answers
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