Bryan R. Moser

Design of Complex Programs as Sociotechnical Systems

Following the introduction of systems thinking concepts in Chap. 3, we demonstrate here the treatment of complex engineering projects as sociotechnical systems in practical engineering practice. This approach, called Project Design, enables concurrent engineering (CE) teams to foresee the influence of project architecture, behaviors, dependencies, and complexity on emergent performance, thereby reducing the occurrence of unpleasant surprises. We have seen in multiple industrial cases this method as a source of new thinking and practices relevant to CE, with supporting tools and processes. Past assumptions about standard work practices may be tested, including such factors as degree of concurrency, phasing, roles, technology decomposition, system interfaces, and risk and its reduction. If embedded behaviors, in interplay with the total project architecture, lead to surprising negative or positive performance, the design of the engineering project as a sociotechnical system begins with un-learning, then awareness, and then learning of the project approaches more likely to produce positive results. The design of concurrency is specific to the nature of the social and technical elements of the system and its architecture.

Characterizing and measuring activity dependence in engineering projects

In an increasingly complex business environment program managers have to take dependencies within the product domain, process domain and organization into account. While activity dependence is still predominantly perceived as only an input-output relationship, a more detailed understanding of activity dependence is expected to improve program and project performance. This paper contributes to the understanding by presenting eight characteristics of activity dependence and 21 respective measures, all derived from literature and expert discussions. We further present an attempt to validate the characteristics and measures by means of a survey with 139 responses. While we could not prove the proposed characteristics wrong or right, we learned about the understanding of activity dependence and show future paths for further research in the paper. The possibility to significantly characterize activity dependence should support program and project managers with the identification of unknown but important dependencies and facilitate to select appropriate means for coordination.

Optimizing Resource Allocation in a Portfolio of Projects Related to Technology Infusion Using Heuristic and Meta-Heuristic Methods

This paper proposes a method to address the planning and scheduling required to infuse technologies into a portfolio of product development projects. Definitive selection of technologies for infusion cannot be applied without taking into account available resources, time required to mature technologies and the interactions among them. Portfolio selection and the scheduling process have often been treated separately although they are interdependent. This research aims to bridge the gap between portfolio scheduling and technology infusion by considering both with realistic performance dynamics, in which the iterative nature of activities is included in the model. Given these improvements, methods for effectively allocating resources in a portfolio of projects related to technology infusion are recommended. Initially, a heuristic method is proposed based on priority rules. However, as the assumptions of the model are loosened a novel method is suggested that combines Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) approaches. Numerical results indicate that the hybrid meta-heuristic method based on GA-ABC is effective in finding good resource allocations while considering rework. At the same time, results confirm that rework can dramatically affect the projects that comprise the portfolio and therefore rework should be included in these analyses.

Evaluation of Project Architecture in Software Development Mixing Waterfall and Agile by Using Process Simulation

For software development, especially massive software systems, a waterfall process is used traditionally. A waterfall process can be highly effective on the condition that a master plan is fixed and the possibility of changes and uncertain rework is low. However, in software development projects, many kinds of reworks occur corresponding to uncertain requirement changes and program bugs. In addition, with the advent of cloud-based software platforms and continuous development operations, it is possible to develop a software system while operating the system. To respond to this situation, software development projects often adopt an agile process. Agility may allow conditional response to uncertain rework, yet at the same time it may be difficult to control the achievement of known project targets. Recently, many cases of adopting mixed processes including waterfall and agile have been reported in the massive software development projects. In this paper, we argue that the mixed process architecture should ...

Risk management in the design of engineering projects as sociotechnical systems

This paper reviews risk management as commonly applied in engineering projects, addresses shortcomings, and introduces additional thinking on uncertainty in engineering projects. Despite practices in risk management, unexpected events leading to unacceptable outcomes continue to occur. As practiced, common methods rest upon input and judgement from experts, in particular to evaluate the exposure and systemic effects of risk. Limitations are well known, including errors, disparate use of qualitative measures, biases and overconfidence, prioritization and focus on local effect rather than systemic value, and meaningless combined exposure scores. By viewing the engineering project as a sociotechnical system, we place human expertise not as constraint but as fundamental to the system. Rather than removal of human judgment, we seek to position people to leverage existing judgment within limits of relevance while stimulating attention and learning towards systemically relevant options. We propose the design of projects that incorporate human attention in identification and response to risks as learning and coordination within the projects broader sociotechnical architecture.

Complex Engineering Programs as Sociotechnical Systems

By framing complex engineering as sociotechnical systems, the concurrent engineering (CE) community can gain new insights, practices, and tools to cope with program difficulties. Todays distributed product development teams need to manage both human (organization) and technical (product and process) elements of their work. These sociotechnical elements combine in a real-world engineering program as an integrated architecture with dynamic interactions. Based on traditional representation and analysis of engineering activity, the prediction of performance can become challenging. Practices for engineering planning and ongoing management often rest upon deeply held beliefs of stability, detailed decomposability, and feasible control of related products, processes, and organization. However, while these assumptions drove collocated manufacturing during the industrial revolution, today’s engineering programs—and how the CE community considers them—have evolved. This chapter provides historical context on the evolution of systems thinking as applied to engineering and project management. Concepts are summarized as forces which reinforce and those which restrain the treatment of engineering programs as sociotechnical systems. Complexities of real world engineering programs can be considered in order to anticipate emergent outcomes driven by dynamic interaction of technical and social characteristics. This perspective is leading to a new generation of methods and practices for high performance engineering programs.

Simulation-Assisted Ship Design Method for Maximizing Profit

In ship building, the design objective is based on the performance, in terms of technological aspects such as fuel oil consumption rate, maximum speed or combination of those. The proposed method simulates the detailed cost breakdown based on the developed ship performance model and estimates the operational condition to maximize the profit in the market. The operation condition determines the service speeds at full and empty ship, and the market includes the oil price and the freight market. By considering only the technological indicators and assuming technological systems and the fluctuation of economic situations, the designs give different results. This manuscript illustrates how the proposed method works in a case to determine a propeller of a large tanker.

A Requirements Evaluation Method for Ships to Maximize Operational Value under Uncertainty

Requirements defined by shipping firms play a role as the communication interface of product information between these firms and shipbuilders, and the product design is optimized based on the requirements. Ship service life is about 30 years, during which original requirements may lose some relevance. In this paper we explore the introduction of uncertainty and flexibility into requirements so that ships are designed optimally not only for a single given technical condition but for a range of possible operational scenarios, including shifts in the economic environment for shipping firms.