product lifecycle management for automotive development focusing on supplier integration
TRANSCRIPT
www.elsevier.com/locate/compind
Computers in Industry 59 (2008) 288–295
Product lifecycle management for automotive development
focusing on supplier integration
Dunbing Tang *, Xiaoming Qian
College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, PR China
Available online 27 August 2007
Abstract
The past years have seen growing investments in the area of product lifecycle management (PLM) by the automotive sector. Due to its complex
development cycle, the automotive OEM has begun to adopt the supplier integration into its product development process. To respond to this new
trend, the PLM system needs to evolve to support the collaboration and partnership management between the automotive OEM and associated
suppliers. Regarding the depth of collaboration, the integration of supplier into OEM process chain has been defined in two ways, quasi-supplier
integration and full supplier integration. To enable the success of supplier integration, one of the PLM tasks is to control the collaboration between
the automotive OEM and its suppliers, through deciding on an appropriate supplier integration way. Meanwhile, aiming at reduction of the
expenditure for partnership management and coordination, the automotive OEM tends to have direct connections with limited number of capable
and effective suppliers, called system suppliers. Other suppliers, called sub-suppliers no longer directly communicate with the automotive OEM,
but instead with a system supplier who works closer with the automotive OEM and deals with the task of sub-supplier management and
coordination. To keep up with these tasks above, a PLM framework is established in a broader perspective in this paper, enabling supplier
integration and partnership management in the automotive development process all along the life cycle. Finally, an automotive case study is
presented to illustrate the PLM implementation procedure focusing on supplier integration.
# 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Product lifecycle management; Automotive development; Supplier integration; Partnership; Collaboration
1. Introduction
The automotive industry is now under increasing pressure to
maintain their places in the market. To improve their ability to
innovate, get products to market faster, and reduce errors, the
automotive manufacturers have been continuing to improve their
development and management abilities through advances in
computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided process planning
(CAPP), computer-assisted manufacturing (CAM), computer-
aided engineering (CAE), concurrent engineering (CE), product
data management (PDM), business process reengineering
(BPR), etc. [1]. It is worthy of pointing out that the past years
have seen growing investments in the area of product lifecycle
management (PLM) by the automotive industries [2–5]. For
example, companies from Boeing to GM to Proctor & Gamble
are using PLM technology, making it a $16 billion industry in
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (D. Tang).
0166-3615/$ – see front matter # 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compind.2007.07.002
2004. GM credits PLM initiatives with decreasing time to market
from 48 to 18 months [6]. Automotive industry leaders such as
Autoliv, Eaton, Honda, and Johnson Controls are driving success
by using the MatrixONE solutions [7]. Regarding the importance
of PLM to the automotive industry, Reale and Burkett make a
conclusion which is ‘‘The Smarter the Car, the More Automakers
Need PLM’’ [8].
PLM can be considered as a business strategy intended to
link all information, people, and processes associated with a
product from birth through end-of-life disposal [9]. Similar to
other types of products, it is generally recognized that PLM for
automotive development needs to span common product
lifecycle phases from customer requirements definition,
product design/simulation/analysis, production planning, man-
ufacturing quality management, service and guaranty manage-
ment, as well as recycling [10]. It is necessary to note that
different PLM implementation patterns have been derived
according to corresponding industry context and product
characteristics [10]. The automotive industry tends to have
structured process emphasizing configuration traceability and
Fig. 1. PLM tool enabling the supplier integration.
D. Tang, X. Qian / Computers in Industry 59 (2008) 288–295 289
accountability persistence, and the automotive product devel-
opment lifecycle is considered to follow the pattern of the
stage-gate model [2,11]. Meanwhile, automotive suppliers are
seeking new ways to strictly contain costs without sacrificing
innovative, feature-rich products, and platforms. With the
demands for faster innovation, higher quality, and increased
regulation, it becomes apparent that the winning automotive
suppliers will be those that leverage product innovations to
rapidly develop new platforms and win new programmes.
Therefore, for the automotive OEM industries, there is an
important new trend of automotive development which is
increasing supplier involvement or integration into the product
development process chain.
To respond to the trend of supplier integration for automotive
development, the evolution of PLM framework and tools is very
important and critical. Focusing on the supplier integration and
collaboration, the direction of PLM for automotive development
is investigated in this paper. The paper is organized as follows.
Section 2 explains the rational of supplier integration for
automotive development. As PLM is the front of new challenges
to enable successful supplier integration for automotive
development, it needs to be responsible of controlling the
collaboration between the automotive OEM and suppliers as well
as managing the partnership between them. Therefore, Section 3
presents two types of supplier integration (quasi-supplier
integration and full supplier integration) according to the
collaboration depth; Section 4 discusses the partnership interface
between the automotive OEM and suppliers. In Section 5, a PLM
framework to enable supplier integration for automotive
development is given. In Section 6, a case study is included.
The last section concludes the paper.
2. Supplier integration for automotive development
Due to its complex development cycle, the automotive
industry is seen to adopt the supplier integration into the
development process or outsource a higher percentage of the
product development to suppliers, such as Magna’s involvement
in Citreon, BMW, and DCX, Valeo and ArvinMeteritor in BMW
[2]. Actually, it has been found from contemporary research in
the fields of concurrent engineering and supply chain manage-
ment that significant benefits can be achieved if suppliers are
integrated/involved in new product development processes as
early as possible, which is called Early Supplier Involvement
(ESI) [12–15]. The rational is that suppliers frequently possess
the greater depth of domain expertise that can lead to
improvements in product design. The traditional OEM–supplier
relationship is characterized by a sequential, two-step interac-
tion. In the first step, the OEM gives clear product and
production requirements to the supplier. In the second step, the
supplier delivers the product or service to the OEM. Both parties
tend to optimize their own position instead of looking at the
cooperative gain, and this behaviour is not based on
complementary strengths. Supplier integration/involvement is
a new method for integrating supplier creativity and innova-
tiveness in the new product development process. Supplier
integration/involvement strives to create synergy through
mutually interacting deliverables and decisions between
OEM and supplier. Both sides take advantages of each other’s
capability to develop the product as well as to obtain feedback
from the other party to improve the product development.
To decrease development cycle as possible, the automotive
industry, acting as OEM, tries to focus its time and cost on core
competency areas such as styling, Body of White (BIW),
engine, and transmission, while shifts other portions of
auxiliary system development to suppliers, which can lead to
a win–win situation to both the automotive OEM and suppliers.
Furthermore, it has to be considered, that on the one hand the
more active the involvement of supplier into the automotive
development process chain is supposed to happen, the more
complex the coordination process will be.Theearly integration of
suppliers into the automotive development process chain does not
onlyleadtoanearlierstartofthesupplier’susualactivitiesbutalsoto
ashift inthefocusonactivitiestobeprocessed.Thiswillcausenew
challengesforthecollaborationbetweentheautomotiveOEMand
the supplier. In the current global manufacturing context, the
automotive OEMandassociated suppliersmaybegeographically
separated. Each geographical location focusing on certain area of
the automotive product lifecycle based on resource strengths and
costeffectiveness[2].Forexample,astheautomarketisexpanding
veryfastincurrentChina,somebigautomotivecompanies(suchas
VW, Ford, and GM) put the final assembly in China where
manpower is cost-effective, while keep the design and research
residing with the automotive OEMs. To facilitate supplier
integration/involvement in the automotive product development,
not only technology integration but also process and organization
integration are needed to be considered. The automotive OEM
needs to make the evolving product definition and development
process available to their suppliers, while protecting everyone’s
privatedataandprivateprocessandmanagingeveryone’srole.The
collaboration between the automotive OEM and the integrated
supplier can be defined at different levels according to the
collaboration depth and different types of partnership. To
practically manage the automotive product lifecycle, PLM is in
front of new challenges to meet the requirements above.
3. Collaboration between automotive OEM and
suppliers
As illustrated in Section 2, to realize supplier integration/
involvement, it is important for PLM to provide a collaboration
tool to enable appropriate collaboration between the auto-
motive OEM and its suppliers. Using the collaboration tool, the
supplier can conduct product design for OEM as an appropriate
role (see Fig. 1).
Fig. 2. (a) Quasi-supplier integration and (b) full supplier integration.
D. Tang, X. Qian / Computers in Industry 59 (2008) 288–295290
Regarding the depth of collaboration, the supplier integra-
tion/involvement is in different ways. In this research, the
integration of supplier into OEM process chain can be defined
in two ways (see Fig. 2), quasi-supplier integration and full
supplier integration. The quasi-supplier integration means joint
development efforts with supplier interaction taking place only
at certain times. The development processes of both OEM and
supplier remain half-connected and essential know-how and
information stays with each party’s operation, either side only
takes advantage of the other side’s input and feedback. In the
full supplier integration way, OEM and supplier contribute and
share resources to a much larger extent. During the whole
product development life cycle, know-how and information get
exchanged freely. The boundaries between their development
processes begin to diminish.
To enable the success of the supplier integration, one of the
PLM tasks is to control the collaboration between the
automotive OEM and suppliers, through deciding the appro-
priate supplier integration way at the beginning of the product
development project. The decision needs to be refined such that
the degree of collaboration effort by both the automotive OEM
and suppliers is effectively and efficiently managed, and there
needs to be a clear designation and agreement of the
responsibilities for collaborative development between both
sides. In this research, the preferable way of supplier integration
is determined by two dimensions: the development capability
comparison between supplier and automotive OEM, and the
maturity degree of the product (from very old product to very
new product). Based on both dimensions, how to specify the
way of supplier integration is explained as follows.
Regarding the comparison of the development capability
between the supplier and automotive OEM, the required
development capabilities for a product development may be
distributed either one-sided or split between the supplier and
Fig. 3. Sketch of two types
automotiveOEM.One-sidedmeansthatthesupplierhassufficient
capabilities to develop a special type of product, namely, the
supplier’s capability is higher than the automotive OEM’s. For
example, the seat producers as suppliers to provide automotive
seats,havethegreaterdepthofknowledgeandexpertisewithinthis
givenproductdomainwhereastheautomotiveOEMisreallyaseat
system integrator. Thus, the seat development could be shifted to
suppliers. In this context, the quasi-supplier integration is more
preferable. Split means that both the automotive OEM and
associatedsuppliersshouldteamuptheirdevelopmentcapabilities
tomeet the needsof theproductdevelopment, andthe full supplier
integration is more likely to be selected.
The other factor affecting the way of supplier integration is
the maturity degree of product: from very old product to very
new product. The old product means that supplier or automotive
OEM already has enough experiences on the current product
development, and quasi-supplier integration is more likely to
occur in this case. In contrast, the newer product development
is, more cooperation between the automotive OEM and
suppliers is needed in order to be successful, thus follows
the full supplier integration.
It is noted that both factors above should be considered
together when deciding the way of supplier integration.
Combining both factors, Fig. 3 abstractly illustrates which type
of supplier integration is more preferable in different contexts.
For example, for the case A, as the developed product is very old,
quasi-supplier integration is selected. For the case B, although
the product to be developed is moderately new, full supplier
integration is selected because the capability of associate
supplier is not very strong. For the case C, quasi-supplier
integration is selected on account of the higher capability of
supplier compared with the automotive OEM. For the case D, the
full supplier integration is chosen because the product to be
developed is very new, and the tight cooperation between the
automotive OEM and associated suppliers is necessary.
4. Partnership interface between automotive OEM and
suppliers
Generally, the partnership interface between an automotive
OEM and associated suppliers is mainly modelled based on the
product’s Bill of Materials (BOM). The BOM-oriented
of supplier integration.
Fig. 4. The 1-to-n partnership interface between an automotive OEM and
suppliers.
D. Tang, X. Qian / Computers in Industry 59 (2008) 288–295 291
partnership interface can be characterized by a 1-to-n-
relationship (see Fig. 4). This means in detail that, the
automotive OEM is responsible for selecting all suppliers and
directly allocating BOM-oriented development and production
orders to the selected suppliers. Investigations, however, reveal
some limitations of the BOM-oriented interface between the
OEM and suppliers. In this context, the burden of the OEM
increases with the number of suppliers, because the entire
responsibility and execution of supplier management and
coordination is thus all given to the OEM [16].
To overcome the problem above, there is a trend in the
automobile industry, which is the reduction of direct suppliers
to a small number of system specialists. By introducing this
strategy, Audi, for example, managed to reduce half of its direct
tooling suppliers within a period of four years [17]. To keep up
with this trend, the automotive OEM and associated suppliers
require a clear understanding of the form of partnership
between them.
Aiming at reduction of the number of direct suppliers and
hence lessening the expenditure for supplier management and
coordination, the traditional BOM-oriented partnership inter-
face between the automotive OEM and suppliers is shifting to a
new form (see Fig. 5). Some capable and effective suppliers,
called system suppliers, are chosen to have direct connections
to the automotive OEM, and other suppliers, called sub-
suppliers do no longer directly communicate with the
automotive OEM, but instead with an ‘‘intermediate’’ system
supplier who works closer with the automotive OEM and deals
with the task of sub-supplier management and coordination. For
example, the automotive OEM can subcontract the seat order to
Fig. 5. Multilevel partnership interface between the automotive OEM and
suppliers.
a system supplier, who is responsible for the seat system and
while assigns small seat parts (such as seat belt and seat fixing
bracket) to other sub-suppliers. The system supplier will be
responsible of considering the allocation of orders to other sub-
suppliers, and faced with the requirement to co-design relevant
parts of the product together with the automotive OEM. The
prerequisite for such partnership interface is the agreement on
the function of both types of suppliers during the order
processing phase.
5. PLM framework and tools enabling supplier
integration for automotive development
Compared with the traditional engineering information
management and product data management which support
static vaulting of design files and workflow for approval,
release, and change management, PLM addresses a more
holistic perspective that ties information management and
system integration with business strategy, thereby not only
facilitating the efficient use, dissemination, creation and change
of product related information, but also exploring system
effects across the full product realization process [18]. Today
the activities during automotive development programme are
mainly organized around a static representation of the product.
The engineering data related to this static representation is
made of engineering objects. To manage this data the
automotive industry is currently moving to commercial PLM
systems (i.e. MatrixOne, Enovia, Windchill). Some classical
tools (including engineering information management, process
management, configuration management, project management,
etc.) are commonly recognized to be incorporated into PLM
framework. These classical tools can used for (1) storage and
management of technical objects, configuration data, product
model, (2) definition and management of the development
process, and (3) management of the technical objects using
check-in/check-out mechanisms and maintaining data revision
and status.
To keep up with the trend of supplier integration for
automotive development, the PLM framework needs to be
established in a broader perspective. Besides common and
classical PLM functions, the global aim here is to develop and
validate an innovative PLM framework enabling suppliers
integration with appropriate partnership management all along
the automotive development life cycle. It is considered that the
adoption of supplier integration will lead to a significant
enhancement of the automotive development process. As
shown in Fig. 6, the supplier integration tools mainly include
supplier selection, partnership management between the
automotive OEM and suppliers, information (including
know-how) share between the automotive OEM and suppliers,
communication utility to enable the interaction between the
automotive OEM and suppliers, etc. These tools are easy to
understand except information share which is explained as
follows.
The information share is aimed at supporting suitable
supplier integration into the automotive OEM process, while
certain information issues such as the physical distribution of
Fig. 6. PLM framework focusing on supplier integration for automotive development.
D. Tang, X. Qian / Computers in Industry 59 (2008) 288–295292
information, access rights to shared information, information
visibility levels, as well as partner information interoperability
bring new challenges to information management. The
information management is based on such facts: (1) the
partners (automotive OEMs or suppliers) are autonomous; (2)
not all partners play the same role and not all of them have the
same access level to the information stored in other partners.
In order to facilitate appropriate information share, the first
step is to analyze and classify the information depending on the
applications. The information hereby is categorized as follows:
(1) P
rivate information. This type of information is not sharedwith other partners; it is intended to be accessed only for
local processing. For example, the know-how related to the
core competence of the automotive OEM is of this type.
(2) P
ublic information. The information accessible by both theautomotive OEM and associated suppliers.
(3) E
xchanging information. The information between theautomotive OEM and suppliers, such as the sending and
reception messages.
(4) I
nteroperable information. The information not only can beremotely accessed, but also can be interoperated and
changed remotely by other partners. For example, through
full supplier integration, the product model designed by the
automotive OEM could be improved on-line by suppliers in
a co-design way.
Due to the information classification, four types of
information interaction are defined between the automotive
OEM and associated suppliers: browsing, exchanging, quasi-
interoperating, and interoperating (see Fig. 7).
(1) B
Fig. 7. Four types of information interaction between automotive OEM and
supplier.
rowsing. It is the lowest level of information interaction.
For instance, through Internet, general description of a
supplier in a way that advertises the company is
made accessible to the public including the automotive
OEM.
(2) E
xchanging. Through exchanging interaction, one side canobtain acquaintance information from other side to serve
internal purpose. For example, an automotive OEM owns
the end product, and it can download the standard part (such
as bolt, nut) model from other outsourcing supplier
enterprises and uses it as its own part model to finish the
product development process.
(3) Q
uasi-interoperating. The quasi-interoperating interactionmeans that the supplier can get some product related issues
from the automotive OEM. After changing or modifying
these issues, he/she can transmit them back to the
automotive OEM. Meanwhile, a message will be sent
concurrently as a notification. Quasi-interoperating is a
D. Tang, X. Qian / Computers in Industry 59 (2008) 288–295 293
general information interaction way for quasi-supplier
integration.
(4) I
nteroperating. It is the highest level of informationinteraction. Through interoperating interaction, the supplier
can directly access the required product model from the
automotive OEM and has the full right to operate it on-line.
This type of information interaction is for full supplier
integration.
6. Case study
Aiming at taking advantage of PLM, Nanjing-Fiat, an
automotive joint venture company in China, has begun to
implement its PLM system. For Nanjing-Fiat, most of the
automotive product design activities are conducted in Italy,
while the manufacture, assembly and vendition are performed
in China. Most of suppliers of Nanjing-Fiat are also located in
China for cost effectiveness. Focusing on the supplier
integration and collaboration, following main issues are
considered by Nanjing-Fiat for an adaptive PLM solution,
� A
lthough the automotive product design conducted in Italy isadvanced, it may not consider the capability of Chinese
suppliers as well as the aesthetic views of Chinese customers.
The PLM system needs to support the collaborative product
design by supplier integration and possible customer
involvement.
� T
o reduce the development cycle, the speed of automotiveproduct design becomes faster than before. Sometimes the
suppliers cannot keep up with the outsourcing step of OEM.
Therefore, it is necessary that some important suppliers (such
as system suppliers introduced before) join the product
design process chain at the early stage, and then they can
know their supplying tasks as early as possible.
� A
Fig. 8. NSK implementation procedure.
s the design and production are separated in different
countries, the PLM system is required to keep the consensus
between the design and manufacture sides.
A PLM system, called NSK (Nanjing-Fiat Solution Kit)
has been developed accordingly. It aims to provide a
common environment in which Nanjing-Fiat and suppliers
can collaborate, exchanging files and key information about
vehicles. Intense pricing and timing pressure from OEMs
demands that suppliers provide faster, more accurate
responses. NSK is particularly beneficial to enable the
supplier integration into the early OEM development
process. In NSK, a web-based tool can be used by both
the OEM and suppliers for the operation (including
uploading, browsing, exchanging, and downloading) of the
product requirements for specific vehicle systems. The
operational data that are transferred between the OEM and
the suppliers conforms to a structured format about the
design choices, specification elements and associated
definitions for the requirements of an automotive system.
In this way, the OEM and suppliers can have a shared
understand of the product requirements in terms of mutually
accepted associated language, and the automotive suppliers
can accurately take the requirements data for internal
dissemination in their respective organizations.
Nanjing-Fiat performs final assembly, and uses components
from suppliers. In situations where a final product is customized
for a region, assemblies may be reused to create a slightly
different end product. For example, similar models may have
different body styling, but the same chassis and drive train. The
design data must be readily accessible at all locations, and for
all suppliers, so that assemblies can be designed around those
common components. A change to a common component must
be communicated to all associated suppliers, to ensure that all
model-specific assemblies are changed accordingly. NSK can
handle the communication of changes, and facilitate design
reuse through distribution of design data throughout different
participating suppliers, with a management solution to support
reliable data transfer and integrity, providing security without
imposing obstacles and delays. Therefore, by leveraging NSK,
Nanjing-Fiat and suppliers can truly work across functional and
geographic boundaries, to improve efficiency, increase revenue
and reduce cost of goods sold.
� A
ctually, the NSK implementation process is complex, and astep-by-step implementation methodology is adopted by
Nanjing-Fiat, which can be divided into different levels and
phases shown in Fig. 8.
� A
t the strategy level, the PLM strategy focusing on supplierintegration is decided.
� A
t the technique level, the tools to enable supplier integrationare chosen.
� A
t the operation level, the PLM system is going to work.Corresponding to three levels, three phases are defined to
distinguish the NSK implementation contents,
� P
reparation phase: selection of suppliers after zoomingpotential ones.
D. Tang, X. Qian / Computers in Industry 59 (2008) 288–295294
� D
efinition phase: exploration of partnership between supplierand OEM and decision of the type of supplier integration.
� E
xecution phase: PLM configuration, training, execution,and continual improvements.
Following lessons to automotive industries are obtained
within the NSK implementation in Nanjing-Fiat:
� S
upplier integration into the OEM’ value will be the crucialfactor of automotive success.
� T
he collaboration situation cannot be realized by thesupplier’s effort alone. Instead, a reorientation on the side
of OEM is necessary.
� T
he earlier the integration of supplier into the OEM processchain is supposed to happen, the more complex the
reorientation process will be.
� P
LM is distinguished methodology, which can be on the onehand painful, but the on the other hand very helpful.
7. Conclusions
It is widely acknowledged that the automotive industry is
more than ever obliged to improve its development strategy
according to the increasing pressure of product innovation
and complexity, the emergence of new technology, the
changing market demands and increasing level of customer
awareness. The provision of appropriate product lifecycle
management in a complete and holistic manner has become
crucial for the automotive development. As the automotive
OEM has begun to adopt the supplier integration into the
development process, new challenges rise for PLM to support
the collaboration and partnership management between the
automotive OEM and the supplier. Regarding the depth of
collaboration, the integration of supplier into OEM process
chain has defined in two ways, quasi-supplier integration and
full supplier integration. To enable the success of the supplier
integration, one of the PLM tasks is to control the
collaboration between automotive OEM and supplier,
through deciding the appropriate supplier integration way.
To reduce expenditures for partnership management and
coordination, some capable and effective suppliers, called
system suppliers, are suggested to be chosen to have direct
connections to the automotive OEM. Other suppliers, called
sub-suppliers do no longer directly communicate with the
automotive OEM, but instead are under the management and
coordination of system supplier. To keep up with the trends of
current automotive development, a PLM framework is
established in a broader perspective. The PLM implementa-
tion practice has shown the PLM is not a simple undertaking,
and it entails multitude of personnel, techniques, and
organization.
Acknowledgement
This research is partly supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Research Grant under
project no. 50505017.
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Prof. Dunbing Tang earned his PhD from Nanjing
University of Science and Technology (NUST) in
March 2000. Then he spent 2 years on his post-
doctoral research at Tsinghua University of Beijing
and City University of Hong Kong. Funded by the
renowned Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he
conducted his research in Aachen University (RWTH
Aachen, Germany) as an Alexander von Humboldt
research scientist from July 2002 to February 2004.
Thereafter he moved to Cranfield University (UK) as
a research fellow. Offered with a full-time professorship, Prof. Tang joined
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in December 2005. Up to
now, Prof. Tang has conducted several research grants as a principal investigator
D. Tang, X. Qian / Computers in Industry 59 (2008) 288–295 295
(PI) or co-PI, and he has published over 70 academic papers. His research
interests include engineering design, knowledge-based systems, enterprise
integration, manufacturing system modeling and simulation, etc. His research
outcome can be found in international high-quality academic journals such as
International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Com-
puter Integrated Manufacturing, IMechE Part B-Journal of Engineering Man-
ufacture, Computers & Industrial Engineering, International Journal of
Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Computers in Industry, Journal of
Intelligent Manufacturing, Robotics & Computer Integrated Manufacturing,
Concurrent Engineering – Research & Applications.
Dr. Xiaoming Qian is a lecturer at the Nanjing
University of Aeronautics & Astronautics. He
received his PhD degree in Mechanical and Electrical
Engineering in 2004. His research projects aim at
developing methods and tools to assist the activities
of project managers and architects who design com-
plex products. He has published more than 10 papers
for conferences and journals.