Integrated Product
Development
Exploiting Web-Based Technology
to Foster IPDT Productivity
Phillip J. Brown
System Engineering Associates, Inc.
PO Box 763220
Dallas, TX 75376-3220
[email protected]
Jack K. Lavender, Jr.
Lockheed Martin Vought Systems
PO Box 650003 M/S L14-01
Dallas, TX 75265
[email protected]
System Engineering Associates, Inc.
Managing Complexity with 21st Century Tools
Vought Systems
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 1
Integrated Product
Development
Presentation Outline
•
•
•
•
•
Product Development Environment
Process Implementation
Representative Applications
Cost Benefits
Why This Works!
LOSAT (Line-of-Sight Anti-Tank)
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 2
Implementation Environment
(Information Technology)
Integrated Product
Development
• Company IT Infrastructure
Contemporary computer communications infrastructure is in place.
Adapting this utility to Integrated Product Development Team
(IPDT) needs required no new funds.
• Technologies
Essential enabling technology was provided in the summer of 1991
by Tim Berners-Lee (Brody, 1996) with the establishment of open
communication standards freeing document exchange from platform
dependence
Lockheed Martin had a site license for the Netscape Browser.
The emergence of database oriented “middleware” products like
Alliare’ Cold Fusion ™ provided needed bridge to legacy systems
and to small project created databases
• Team receptive to ideas for slashing costs.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 3
Integrated Product
Development
The Challenge
Change culture
and
spend no money*!
(*development and maintenance)
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 4
Process Model
Integrated Product
Development
System Definition
System Development
System Deployment
Formulation
Analysis
Interpretation
Three Engineering Steps
within each of the three
lifecycle phases
- Andrew Sage
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 5
Implementation Schedule
“Team Participation Drove System Evolution”
Prototype
Demo
Integrated Product
Development
Start
Phase II
Phase I
Oct, 96
Server
Alpha
Dec, 96
Server
Beta
Phase III
Apr, 97
Contract
Incorporation
Phase IV
Jul, 97
Dec, 97
• Prototype
– This was a file based system used to demonstrating how to organize
and present product design information.
• Alpha
– This was the first ‘web served’ version. This static site demonstrated
how to distribute data over multiple campuses.
• Beta
– This was the first dynamic version. It connected us with legacy
information systems and provided ‘real-time’ team interaction.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 6
Defining Architectural Requirements
Engineering
Integrated Product
Development
Product
Operations
Project
Materials Quality Finance
Location
System
Mech
Elec
Mfg
Specifications
C
C
C
U
U
Design Documents
C
C
C
U
U
U
ECAD
U
U
C
U
U
U
Digitial/FC
MCAD
U
C
U
U
U
U
Digitial/FC
BOM
U
U
U
U
U
Digitial/FC
Work Instructions
C
C
U
U
U
U
Mgmt Contracts
U
U
U
Digitial/FC
Digitial/FC
U
Digitial/FC
Letters
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
Digitial/FC
Reports
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
Digitial/FC
Directives
U
U
U
U
U
U
C
C
Digitial/FC
Schedules
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
C
Digitial/FC
Planning
C
C
C
Digitial/FC
L eg en d : C - Create U - Use FC - Filing Cabinent ECAD - Electronic CAD MCAD - Mechanical CAD BOM - Bill of Materials
• Matrix was developed by LOSAT product development team
members.
• Team identified every product produced and used by
individuals on program.
• Final matrix was 59 rows by 13 columns.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 7
Product Taxonomy
(Cornerstone for Solving the Problem)
• Revision Tracked Document
Integrated Product
Development
This is a stand-alone document that captures the design or is used to
apply process controls.
• Latest version only
The author keeps up with the change history, but the team members
are only interested in the latest version.
• Simple Databases
This is characterized by Forms used to apply process control.
• Legacy Open Database
Access existing databases using Cold Fusion and ODBC (Open Data
Base Connectivity).
• Too Hard
This category represents the items that were deemed too difficult to
work, for both technical and political reasons.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 8
Integrated Product
Development
Building System Functionality
• The first application was posting weekly activity reports.
• The second was to devise a framework for distributing
scheduling and cost reports.
• All IPDT schedules, presentations, meeting minutes and
action items were distributed via the web.
• Pervasiveness of information products demonstrated the
need for a solid document vault and set implementation
priorities.
• A hierarchical structure mirroring our product design and
functional organizations was used to distribute the vaulted
documents in context.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 9
Integrated Product
Development
How We Tested and Verified Solutions
• We adhered to a design, code, test, and enhance
approach for development. Solutions we chose had
to be “good enough” to solve the problem at hand.
• Users’ needs drove system utility. The developer
was there with the users and feeling the same
project driven pressures.
• The short deployment timeline enabled users to
immediately ascertain if a design met their needs.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 10
Integrated Product
Development
The LOSAT Portal
This is the starting
place to the
LOSAT product
documentation.
It provides a
context-centric
browsing base on
our team culture
and the product
design.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 11
Integrated Product
Development
Cooperative Writing
This was the first test of a
dynamic web environment
It provided a tool for
performing a group writing
assignment using a checkout/check-in system.
It allowed management to
monitor the progress and
evaluate scope of work in
near real-time.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 12
The Drawing Tree
Integrated Product
Development
A Primary Communication Means for Engineering
Development Teams
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 13
Integrated Product
Development
The “Killer Application”
• A cost-benefit study was performed to find and prioritize the best ideas
for cutting IPDT operational costs.
• While all the proposed ideas produced impressive returns on
investment, the task producing the highest pay-off was digitizing the
process used by the company to track a product through design, build
and test. (Logbooks)
• Functional engineering management rejected the initial findings as
unrealistic. (June, 1997)
• A second effort collected actual logbook preparation costs.
Recalculation of the Estimated Return on Investment from digitizing
logbooks produced an ROI exceeding 6,000 percent. Annual savings
were four million dollars per year.
• Today (June, 1999), a special Product Data Management team is
working to implement electronic logbooks across the Division.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 14
Integrated Product
Development
Why This Implementation Works!
• The architecture is extensible, yet can be developed and
maintained by one individual.
• The system can be rapidly adapted to solve each day’s
problems.
• Emphasis is on content.
• User needs are always paramount
• At its core, the system was a vault built to organize and
distribute information.
• The functionality of the system sells itself through making
each team member’s job easier.
Phil Brown - Jack Lavender 15