INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE FOR LEAN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

1
INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE FOR LEAN PRODUCT
DEVELOPMENT Xianming Cai, and Kai Yang,
Professor. Department of Industrial and
Manufacturing Engineering Wayne State University
Systemic View of Improved Information
Architectures of Product Development Systems

• THE CASE STUDY
• Key Points
• Analyzing current trends and emerging issues in
  vehicle design
• Networking with the people involved in
  implementation
• Capacity-building including new knowledge
  management tools and methods
• Technical cooperation through the matching of
  supply with demand for proven expertise and
  experience

• How does the Information Architecture been
  evaluated?
• Product Development Process can also be viewed as
  a continuously process to collecting relative
  information and solving the emerged issues. As in
  TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving),
  Genrich S. Altshuller, he categorized the general
  issues and problem solutions into five levels

ABSTRACT The concept of lean new product
development is the starting point for any
manufacturing enterprise. Lean design principles
can be applied to the process for developing a
product, the product itself, and the process of
manufacturing the new product. As the information
systems play a key role in supporting lean
product development, the product development
process now can be identified as the process of
information sharing and processing. However, with
today's complex and dynamically driven databases
and networks systems, information architecture
have become critical to most large product
development projects. In this case study, we
define a five-level information architecture for
an automobile company. Applying this theory, we
provide a solution to reorganize the
cross-department information systems and support
lean product development by significantly
reducing the average product development time.
Distributed Corporation Information Units
Integrated Information Processing System

• Level one. Routine product development problems
  solved by methods well known within the
  specialty. No invention needed. About 32 of the
  solutions fell into this level.
• Level two. Minor improvements to an existing
  system, by methods known within the industry.
  Usually with some compromise. About 45 of the
  solutions fell into this level.
• Level three. Fundamental improvement to an
  existing system, by methods known outside the
  industry. About 18 of the solutions fell into
  this category.
• Level four. A new generation that uses a new
  principle to perform the primary functions of the
  system. Solution found more in science than in
  technology. About 4 of the solutions fell into
  this category.
• Level five. A rare scientific discovery or
  pioneering invention of essentially a new system.
  About 1 of the solutions fell into this
  category.
• According to the above theory, we suggest a
  associated five-level information architecture in
  the table below.

Standardize Data Structure for the Systems
Interface View of Improved Information
Architectures of Product Development Systems
Vehicles Info.
Level II
Vehicle System Components
Level IV
Doors and Closures
Front Door Assemblies
Body Hardware
Effective Knowledge Management and Information
Architectures Supporting LPD
Body Shell
Front Door Sub Components
Level I
Bumper/Fascia
Roof System
Level III
Body
Front Door Outer

• Lean Product Development Framework
• Lean Product Development Objectives
• - Less Resources, Time, Cost
  Waste
• Five Lean Product Development Principles
• Define Value to the Customer
• Identify the Value Stream and Eliminate Waste
• Make the Value-Creating Steps Flow
• Empower the Team
• Learn and Improve
• As the result of the rapid development of
  information technology, the computer systems and
  soft wares have been used to achieve the above
  five Lean Product Development Principles in
  practice. Thus the information architecture have
  become critical to most large product development
  projects

Sealing System
Front Door
Front Door Inner
Chassis
Tapping Plate
Rear Door
Front Door Beam
Under Body
Hood
Front Door Hinge Reinforcement
Powertrain
Fender
Front Door Latch Reinforcement
Decklid
Interior
Lift Gate
Front Door Belt Inner Reinforcement
Exterior
Swing Gate
Tail Gate
Front Door Belt Outer Reinforcement
Electrical
Figure1. Previous Data Structure
Vehicles Info.
Level II
OVERALL VEHICLE
Level III
FRONT DOOR LH
GENERAL
DOOR ASSEMBLY FRONT LT
F.D.RH
HINGES-FRONT DOOR LT
Results Integration The new systems with improved
architectures have been launched for three
months. Standard data interchange format has been
defined for each individual database or
submodule. A web-based integration system has
been designed to sharing the global knowledge and
information within the company, which reaches
Level 2 of defined Information Architecture .
With these efforts, Time has been significantly
reduced in the product development process.
R.D.LH
Level I
R.D.RH
DOORS
DOOR MODULE FRONT LT
LIFTGATE

COCKPIT
EXTERIOR FRONT DOOR LT
SEATS
..
Table. Levels of Information Architecture
VACUUM S.
DRIVE TRAIN
.
Figure2. Improved Data Structure

• What is Information Architecture?
• At its most basic, information architecture is
  the construction of a structure or the
  organization of information. In a library, for
  example, information architecture is a
  combination of the catalog system and the
  physical design of the building that holds the
  books. For the product development information
  systems of a company, information architecture is
  a combination of organizing the information in
  many databases from different departments into
  categories and creating an interface to support
  those categories.

Interface Structures
Conclusions Next step we need improve the IA of
LPD from level 2 to level 3.5, which means that
the systems can provide the user not only most of
information within the specific industry, but
also selected useful information from others, and
then we can achieve the optimal information
architecture in terms of the costs.
Figure3. Redesigned Interface Structure