A Systems View of Design Engineering Capacity / Continuous Improvement
Policy Interaction
by
Anil B, Jambekar, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan 49931
With many companies implementing continuous improvement policy to enhance all company
operations, everybody is knocking on design engineering’s door because ‘coordinated up-front
design definition’ has become a critical requirement for new product introduction and because
design engineering plays a central role in enhancing the performance of re-engineered or improved
manufacturing processes. Today, many manufacturing strategies embrace the goals of reducing
“time to development”, “time to ship”, “defects per million,” and “cost” every year. The articulated
associated policies create pressures on various manufacturing divisions, design engineering, and
marketing and product planning to respond by continuous examinations of their operations for
potential improvements or re-engineering. The consequence is production of the design work-load
that some times far exceeds existing design capacity. This clearly emerges as a management
problem that has been viewed in this paper through systems thinking lens.
Introduction
Today many manufacturing firms are stressed by global competitive pressures, new technologies,
and government regulations. In response to these demand, most have adopted continuous
improvement polices for all operations which require on-going product and process re-
engineering and improvements to enhance performance and productivity. The associated policies
to support organization wide implementation of continuous improvement policies create pressures
on various manufacturing divisions and design engineering to respond by continual examinations
of their operations for potential improvements or re-engineering. Simultaneously marketing and
product planning divisions are also under pressure to respond to customer requirements and
competitive pressures to generate new and improved product concepts. Reward structures are
also tinkered with in order to attribute credit to appropriate individuals for new product or
process improvement ideas. The consequence has been production of the design work-load that
some times far exceeds existing design capacity. This clearly emerges as a management problem at
an organizational level and also at design engineering unit level. The both problems are
interrelated, since many hiring and budgetary decisions are made at the organizational level where
as resource allocation to various engineering projects is done at the design engineering unit level
These problems are viewed in this paper through systems thinking lens. The observations
presented here are based on understanding developed at two different manufacturing firms At
the organizational level, the problem of managing design engineering capacity is structurally
similar to the “Tragedy of Commons” archetype [Senge, 1990]. Looking at the design
engineering level, the design engineering capacity management problem has structural similarity
to the problems faced by a service business [Parasuraman A., V. A. Zeithaml and L. L. Berry,
1985; Senge and Sterman, 1992] An objective of this paper is to show how systems view and
the insights already available can be leveraged to improve the relevant decision making processes.
The next section presents the underlying structure that generates the problem at the organizational
level. The following section shows the structure of the feedback processes at design engineering
level. The presentation is restricted to the structural diagrams.
BOT
Tragedy of Commons Structure
It is assumed that marketing and product planning respond to competitive pressures and customer
needs. Their outcome is new product ideas in the form of sales release, which become new design
engineering projects. When the projects are completed satisfactorily, marketing and product
planning receive credit. The underlying structure is presented in Figure 1.
ou RELEASE
ral . se
ioe to OS sassenarse Typical manufacturing division responds to
rowinT | ® t continuous improvement polices by re-
owipenrecss © “ engineering and quality management
reiocofmcrs | neuer hosel) aaa initiatives. Frequently requests for product
cowernne ae . « ae
mmooucts scoerrenocten design changes come in the form engineering
FIGURE 1: DESIGN DEMAND FROM MARKETING / PRODUCT PLANNING
changes to which design engineers have to gaye 0 ere aoe
respond. The corresponding structure is mony oo “ sengele
shown in Figure 2. means e218) ay Oesonansewonee
PRESSURE gy | ~ baad
7 a MANUFACTURING: RCRLCOM be:
Figure 3 shows a causal loop diagram of how Sas cunt Sp eesine a0
design engineering generates own internal FIGURE 2: DESIGN DEMAND FROM MANUFACTURING DIVISION
Projects in response to warranty and repair vmseuvry sewnce
: : F maeANty SERIE —_———————~we
notices, to perceived cost and functional MOS po Ram tcc
quality performances gaps. cost ouaty oo “ “ Lous
ay 4 ay oxscheasewiont
necuaiory t ® ® =)
. . . 4 a oan
Design engineering resource is the common PRESSURE Oetay i i '
: NRE ESIGN COMPLETIONS
resource in all of theses structures. —~cosrrauauny j .
~~!
PenronMance — ACCEPTEDOESKGNS we OEY
Consequently, the engineering capability has FIGURE 3: INTERNALLY GENERATED DESIGN DEMAND
potential of becoming a limiting force. When
all of these structures are stitched together, a tragedy of commons structure evolves as shown in
Figure 4.
Feedback Processes at Design Engineering Level
At the design engineering level, the engineering projects are the driving force for resource
allocation decisions. Figure 5 shows the feedback structure which underlies a potential drift to
lower performance. Design engineering unit managers constantly adjust the pace of work to
control the backlog of engineering projects. There are six basic aspects of the problem of
management at this level.
238
Roouct ENGINEERING
PRovuct. PERFORMANCE THPROVEMENT XCHANGE
COST/ QUALITY wi wees REQUESTS %®
GOA © DESIGN ans wDes
ORLAY
RAY proouc
—
FEATURE PRODUCT RELEASE
PLANNING ic) oe
CUSTOMER NEEDS
DESIGN COMPLETIONS
DELA’
—— pccenren DESIGNS: °
ci TOTAL DESTON
& ———_ BASEWoRK
ESIGN ENGINEERING
ESOURCES PER DESIGN
age PROCESS ——a—
COST /Quatity GAP PM PROVEMENT = REQUE
GOALS IDEAS DESIGN BASEWORKK
© oepay
DELAY
DESIGN MANUFACTURING DESIGN COMPLETIONS
ENGINEERING =; aa
COST LOUALITY ACCEPTED DESIGNS —we—OELAY
RESOURCES PERFORMANCE
FIGURE 4: TRAGEDY OF COMMONS STRUCTURE
B os BACILOG: ENG. es
i ae |
va l - i -
x DESIGN CHANGES q ge
f ~~ | VERIFICATION DELAY
/
Va 2 | RELEASEDDESIGN WORK REWORK,POTENTIAL
BACKLOG OR-ENG. PROJECTS.
f i" a — aL = |
DesiGne BASE-WORK DESIGN COMPLETION ACCEPTED DESIGNS.
Ps 0 DESIGN PRACTICES
ay © TIME PER PROJ” _peogucnivity © TECHNOLOGICAL
\ cf Ay KNOWHOW
s © ORGANIZATIONAL
\ ye
\ FES. Patna RESSURE STRESS & BURNOUT INFRASTRUCTURE
i o VALUE SYSTEM
. Ti
46 A
IncREASED cost | | WORKINTENSITY ‘
\.
~—___-TIME“AVAILABLE 81 ENGINEERING PRODUCTIVITY LOOP
a ENGINEERS B2 WORK ADJUSTMENT LOOP
: 83 CAPACITY LOOP
Ri STRESS / BURNOUT LOOP
~~ R2: TURNOVER LOOP
HIRING & TRANSFERS 25 ang R3_ REWORK COST ESCALATION LOOP
FIGURE 5: FEEDBACK PROCESSES AT
DESIGN ENGINEERING LEVEL
ae
Mix of design projects
Design capability - learning and re-learning
Customer focused design
Technological changes.
Rework and returns - unplanned and receives scares resources
Continuous improvement policies
BN a grt et
The difficulty is that the performance of the system depends more on the interaction among its
connections and management policies to govern these connections, than on the independent
actions of various functional groups. An implication is that since management has control over
the system and its polices, then it is possible to obtain a competitive advantage by vigorously
viewing the organization as a system to locate high leverage points.
Final Remarks
The transferable insights for the above developed structures are already available in the literature
{Senge, 1990; Senge and Sterman 1992]. Another interesting point is that when both the tragedy
of commons and the feedback process at design engineering level are hooked together, an
archetype, “Growth and Under-investment,” [Forrester, 1968; Senge, 1990] emerges. An
obvious implication is that the design engineering capability should be built ahead of the demand
generation due to continuous improvement culture transformation efforts. Furthermore
operationally, design engineering function resembles that of job shop and service organizations as
the pressure to reduce “time to development” increases.
References
Forrester, Jay 1968. “Market Growth as Influenced by Capital Investment,” Industrial
Management Review, Vol. 9 (Winter), pp. 83-105
Parasuraman A., V. A. Zeithaml and L. L. Berry, 1985. “A Conceptual Model of Service Quality
and Its Implication for Further Research,” Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49 (fall), pp 95-103
Senge, P. M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, New
York: Doublday Currency.
Senge, P. M. and Sterman J. D.1992. “Systems Thinking and Organizational Learning: Acting
Locally and Thinking Globally in the Organization of the Future,” European Journal of
Operational Research, Vol. 59, pp. 137-150
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