Structural Complexity Management (eBook)

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Udo Lindemann was postdoctoral engeged in many industrial enterprises. Since 1995 he is head of the Department for product development of the Technical University of Munich. Teaching and research are focused on the development of strategies for the early stages of development, approaches to product innovation, questions of cost management and the use of computers in product development and the inclusion of psychological and sociological insights. Dr.-Ing. Maik Maurer graduated in mechanical engineering at the Technische Universität München. In 2007 he became Ph.D. at the Technische Universität München.

Foreword 5
Contents 7
1 The challenge of complexity 11
1.1 Increase of complexity in engineering development 13
1.2 The market as the source of increasing complexity 15
1.3 The role of structure in evaluation of complex systems 18
1.4 Opportunities due to complexity in product development 20
1.5 Example of a race car development 22
1.6 Requirements for effective complexity management 26
2 Complexity in the context of product design 31
2.1 Definitions and characteristics 32
2.2 Problems with handling complexity 40
2.3 Complexity management strategies 41
2.4 Opportunities of controlled complexity 46
2.5 Structure consideration for controlling complexity 47
2.6 Significance of complexity in product design 51
3 Methods for managing complex data in product design 53
3.1 Overview of applied methodologies 53
3.2 Application of graph theory 57
3.3 Matrix-based approaches 59
3.4 Status quo of applied methods 69
4 The procedure of structural complexity management 71
4.1 Applicability of conventional complexity management 71
4.2 Procedure of structural complexity management 72
5 Modeling the Multiple-Domain Matrix 77
5.1 Actually applied system definitions 77
5.2 The construction of the Multiple-Domain Matrix 79
5.3 The items of the Multiple-Domain Matrix 82
5.4 A system definition by the Multiple-Domain Matrix 88
6 Information acquisition 89
6.1 Requirements for assuring data quality 89
6.2 Information extraction from available data sets 92
6.3 Information acquisition from interviews 93
6.4 Representation of system structures 97
6.5 Representing structural contexts by graphs and matrices 108
7 Deduction of indirect dependencies 109
7.1 Information acquisition in domain-spanning contexts 109
7.2 Deduction of indirect dependencies from Multiple-Domain Matrices 111
7.3 Logics for the deduction of indirect dependencies 114
7.4 Strategies for the deduction of indirect dependencies 124
8 Structure analysis 129
8.1 Matrix-based methods of structure analysis 132
8.2 Structure analysis based on graph theory 136
8.3 Effective procedure of structure analysis 149
9 Product design application 153
9.1 Structure manual 154
9.2 Structure potentials 159
10 Use case: Automotive safety development 165
10.1 Problem Description 165
10.3 Information acquisition 168
10.4 Deduction of indirect dependencies 169
10.5 Structure analysis 171
10.6 Product design application 173
11 Use case: Development of high pressure pumps 181
11.1 Problem description 181
11.2 System definition 182
11.3 Information acquisition 184
11.4 Deduction of indirect dependencies 186
11.5 Structure analysis 189
11.6 Product design application 191
Literature 199
Appendix 207
A1 Deduction of indirect dependencies 208
A2 Analysis criteria for single-domain networks 211
A3 Methods for the construction of a structure manual 242
Index 247