Design for Global Workshare

Design for Global Workshare: Global enterprises realize the importance of collaborative design, or workshare, to develop products not only to target particular regions or markets, but to sell to the entire world. This paradigm enables diverse customer values integrated into products, but also introduces challenges in workshare management. To assess different collaboration scenarios, we develop a framework that identifies and evaluates workshare risk. The framework consists of two levels: system-level focuses on risk due to the systems' interdependence whereas component-level addresses handover risk of distributed product development. This risk framework is well received by our research sponsors and is currently undergoing validation in global automotive development.

Recent Publications:

• Leung, P., Ishii, K., Benson, J., and Abell, J., "System Engineering Workshare Risk Analysis," Proceedings of ASME DETC 99252, Philadelphia, PA, 2006. [pdf]