TITLE:
Effectiveness of Systems Engineering Techniques on New Product Development: Results from Interview Research at Corning Incorporated
AUTHORS:
Francis Vanek, Peter Jackson, Richard Grzybowski, Matthew Whiting
KEYWORDS:
Commercial Products, Product Development Management, Systems Approach, Interview Research, Mosaic Diagram, Content Analysis
JOURNAL NAME:
Modern Economy,
Vol.8 No.2,
January
26,
2017
ABSTRACT: In new product development (NPD) in the commercial
(as opposed to military/aerospace) environment, many firms express confidence
in the value of applying systems engineering (SE) techniques to the NPD
process, even though there is little research to date that systematically
evaluates the benefits of SE in the commercial setting. The goal of this paper
is therefore to address this gap in the research by testing for SE impact
across multiple projects, in this case within a single enterprise, namely Corning
Incorporated. To achieve this goal, a joint team from the Systems Engineering
Directorate at Corning Incorporated and the Systems Engineering Program at
Cornell University conducted interview research to test for systems engineering
(SE) effectiveness in product development in a commercial setting. The team
conducted 19 interviews of systems engineers and project managers within
Corning to evaluate the extent to which they used a range of systems
engineering techniques, and the effectiveness of those techniques in improving
project performance. The results from the interviews showed that for four
selected areas of SE techniques (market, requirements, validation/verification,
and trade studies), use of SE could be detected across projects that covered a
broad range of Corning’s markets. Furthermore, an association was found between
SE input and project performance. Of the 19 projects, 3 had superior project
performance, and of these 2 out of 3 had “above average” scores in terms of the
extent of SE use. At the other end of the spectrum, 2 out of 19 projects were
judged to have “struggling” performance, and in both cases project difficulties
were traced back to shortcomings in the use of SE that in turn resulted in low
scores in one of the four SE areas. These findings support industry’s general
intuition that early investment in the systems approach in NPD pays off in terms
of better project outcomes. At the end of the paper, content analysis of quotes
from interviews captures project managers’ perspectives on applying systems
engineering, and the concluding discussion suggests ways the study of SE
effectiveness might be extended to other enterprises.