Product Development Resource Allocation with Foresight

摘要

Shortening project duration is critical to product development project success in manyindustries. As a primary driver of progress and an effective management tool, resourceallocation among development activities can strongly influence project duration. Effectiveallocation is difficult due to the inherent closed loop flow of development work and the dynamicdemand patterns of work backlogs. The Resource Allocation Policy Matrix is proposed as ameans of describing resource allocation policies in dynamic systems. A simple system dynamicsmodel and control theoretic model of resource allocation in a product development model aredeveloped. The control theory model is used to specify a foresighted policy, which is tested withthe system dynamics model. The benefits of foresight are found to reduce with increasingcomplexity. Process concurrence is found to potentially reverse the impact of foresight onproject duration. The model structure is used to explain these results and future research topicsare discussed.