Lead Time Estimation Method for Complex Product Development Process

Abstract

As the lifecycle of a product gets shorter, the timely introduction of new products becomes an invaluable asset to most manufacturing firms. It is needless to say that the competitive edge is given to a firm with the better knowledge on how to estimate the product development (PD) process because reducing the product development time is a critical issue for manufacturing firms. However, it is difficult to estimate the performance of the PD process because of its complexity. So far, in spite of its strategic importance, only a few studies have been done. To overcome this limitation, in this study, the authors provide a heuristic algorithm that can estimate the lead time of a complex PD process by series–parallel network transformation and network reduction methods with estimates of the makespans of branch–merge types. To show the usefulness of this method, computational experiments have been carried out.