Driving Product Development with
Critical Parameters
Cognition’s Active Requirements Management for the Full Product Life Cycle
Michel Vrinat, PLM Research Director
Executive Summary
Requirements management presents the first step towards good project execution by linking customer needs or market input with product specifications and actual performance targets. However, the tracking of the critical design parameters with precision, where a mistake compromises or even jeopardizes the entire project, is a challenge in the face of rising complexity. Moreover, keeping the critical data current and maintaining visibility for management based on real data presents the goal of Critical Parameters Management, or CPM.
A new acronym, CPM, will quickly become very familiar to any project manager when they realize how the technology can dramatically improve their focus and control of product development. Cognition embraced the concepts only a few years ago, after providing ideas management and general requirements management solutions adapted to the dynamic cycle that takes place in the early stages of project launch and product definition. Cognition’s Active Requirements Management implements CPM to facilitate the product development process in a similar way as the Internet does for the world at large -- it provides a constant, real time connection between people, helping them share knowledge as it becomes available from a variety of sources.
The companies we interviewed included Motorola; Raytheon; Becton, Dickenson and Company (BD) and a forth company that prefers to remain anonymous. All were extremely pleased with the product and the approach. As one of them said, spontaneously: “Any important engineering project should use Cognition’s CPM”.
The different levels of information and parameters to be managed during a development project begin at the highest level with the “Voice Of Customer,” or market requirements. As summarized in the chart below, a limited number of critical parameters are then selected as “CTQ’s”, or Critical To Quality. Those parameters are then translated into actual targets to be used as inputs for design and simulation for the solution being developed. Finally, all the detailed parameters and data are generated during detailed design phases.
From the original customer needs or market requirements, called “Voice of Customer” in Cognition’s jargon, to the very large number of parameters that will directly drive product performance across the full design cycle, there is a need to closely track a limited number of critical parameters. They must be carefully selected and permanently linked with the necessary performance variables, supporting documents, and reports tracked by management executives.
But an even more important issue that does not appear on this chart was mentioned by all the companies interviewed. They no longer can afford rely on a qualitative point of view that the project’s critical tasks are on time or not as represented by red, yellow or green lights. They must avoid the simplification involved with single point estimates as parameters for time, quality or cost variables. All three value most highly the ability to drive the project and product development from a range of values that defines the performance bracket of acceptable performance for the project or product being defined.
That is a revolutionary approach for managing product development, which closely aligns strategic decision making and mathematical models in the same tool.
All three companies rated this capability as a strategic advantage. All have clearly identified the ROI in terms of cycle time reduction, improved quality and fewer waivers at the end of the product development phase.
Overall, Cognition’s product provides traditional requirements management functions as a substitute for the traditional text-based requirements management tools. But more, Cognition has introduced a shared, web-based backbone for deeper requirements management by linking critical parameters defined at the conceptual stage for system design with the detailed design parameters that drive geometry definition, as well as other artifacts necessary to fully specify a manufactured product. Or, when necessary, Cockpit can simply be linked to existing requirements management applications with the appropriate connector.