Modularisation: A modern process for project management
Nearly all projects are characterised by a certain degree of complexity and uncertainty. However, every project is unique and its success depends on various product development and management processes vital for the current rapidly changing business environment. Within this context, it has become increasingly important for companies to be able to manage the project complexity in order to improve profitability and ensure competitive advantage in the long run.
Modularisation is a process that breaks down complex systems into small and solvable parts. By dividing the product structure into modules, companies seek to optimize the way they function and operate, in terms of transforming their products in a more flexible and accurate way. Modularisation has gained momentum over the years as it helps projects achieve significant benefits by removing underperforming processes, products, parts. Since it is still a relatively new field outside the automotive and aircraft industry where it initially evolved, there is a growing interest in the development process of the modular patterns.
The purpose of this article is to explore the potential of modularisation as a proactive strategy and product development tool for managing effectively the complexity derived from project and portfolio management processes.
Contents |
Big Idea - The theory behind modularisation
Process Modularisation
Product Modularisation
Complex engineering systems
Most complex systems share a common quality. They have nodes and links. Nodes represent the tangible objects like people and links represent the connection between the nodes. It is the combination of links and nodes that produces a full system model and makes visible the thinking design process about how people think something works. The interesting about the system models is how they reveal our different point of views. Organisations, people and individuals make intuitevily use of system models comprising of nodes and links in order to break down complex things into simple things and then bring them back together again and make a whole.
Tools
The main modular approaches
Functional approach
Component approach
Modular Function Deployment (MFD)
Modular Function Deployment tool is used as a step by step process of how to investigate which part of the architecture should be modularised and which should be standardised.
