SYSTEM, METHOD AND SOFTWARE FOR CONVERGENCE-BASED PROJECT PLANNING

摘要

A product development technique is provided that enables a user to define a product family design structure. The product family design structure includes a number of customer concerns, a number of physical properties associated with components of the product, and a number of relation models. Each customer concern is associated with at least one physical property via at least one mathematical relationship defined in at least one of the relation models. The technique also enables the user to define one or more product development projects based on the product family design structure, where the one or more product development projects vary from the product family design structure according to one or more overrides specified by the user for the values associated with one or more of the customer concerns, relation models, and/or physical properties defined in the product family design structure. The technique further enables the user to input a value associated with one or more of the physical properties of at least one of the product development projects and to calculate, using one or more of the relation models, the effect of the inputted value associated with the one or more physical properties on one or more of the customer concerns of the product development project.