A Web-Enabled, Collaborative Solution for Product Development: The Enterprise Process Analysis Toolkit for Affordability (ePATA)

摘要

The virtual enterprise is becoming a reality. With the advances in communication and computer technology, organizations now have the capability to conduct real business over the Internet. From weekly staff meetings to actual product design and services, it is now possible to sit in the comfort of your own office and collaborate with your colleagues electronically. These advances are especially advantageous to those companies involved in the design and manufacture of new products. The focus of this paper is to present the progress made in developing software tools to support the Air Force Research Laboratory's Science and Technology (S&T) Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD) process. The IPPD process applies a systems engineering approach to the research and development phase of system design using modified six sigma methods to provide a measurable way to evaluate and decide among competing design approaches. This measurement-based approach involves an Integrated Product Team (IPT) comprising experts from every aspect of the project. They determine customer requirements and candidate technologies that may answer those requirements, then apply a series of metrics to analyze the technologies for performance, producibility, cost, schedule and risk tradeoffs to arrive at the best value design. Early research efforts indicated several tools would be needed to support the activities of the process. From requirements management to workflow, a suite of tools would provide program managers, scientists, engineers, cost analysts, etc. with duties in an integrated environment.