Engineering and Product Development Management: The Holistic Approach.(Book review)

ENGINEERING AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT: THE HOLISTIC APPROACH Stephen C. Armstrong, 2001 Published by Cambridge University Press, London; ISBN 0-521-79069-7; H/B; xxxi + 325 pp.; US$93.75, GB 45.00 [pounds sterling], AU$125

The book offers an integrated approach to project management with examples drawn primarily from the aerospace industry. Fourteen chapters are broken into three sections.

The first section provides a foundation for product development management and introduces six constituent bodies of knowledge for an holistic approach: integrated product development; project/program management; process management; organizational change/political management; product data management; and systems engineering.

Section two discusses the application of integrated product development management. The author provides an integrated treatment of the product cycle and the project cycle. Chapter 11 includes a discussion of product data management and engineering change order management, two topics that are often overlooked in product development texts.

The third section deals with deployment issues, such as organization structure, culture, and leadership, which will likely be encountered in implementing holistic product development. A key recommendation, throughout the book and highlighted in this section, is the need to simultaneously implement the six bodies of knowledge and the holistic framework. Given the magnitude of this task, the author recommends the formation of an initiative implementation organization that is staffed with key individuals from the formal organization. The author recognizes the simultaneous top-down and bottom-up nature of organizational change and identifies issues and tools ranging from the executive suite to the individual contributor.

The final chapter provides a case study for the hypothetical ACME Engines. The author hopes that the reader can learn from their mistakes and offers ten key lessons learned by the ACME holistic product development initiative implementation effort.

The focus on product development in aerospace provides for a thorough treatment while keeping the narrative fairly clean and linear. But this approach comes at the expense of discussing product development in other environments. Urban and Hauser (1993: Design and Marketing of New Products. 2nd edn. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall) note that variations in the product development process are driven by the organization scale, the customer type, the product type, and the strategic emphasis of the organization. Armstrong's book relates best to established, substantial organizations; entrepreneurial product development is overlooked. It tends to focus on issues arising from make-to-order and business-to-business customer scenarios. Issues driven by other customer types, such as mass market retail and business-to-channel, are largely over-looked. As a result, there is little discussion of such topics as market analysis and segmentation, competitive analysis, market entry strategy, product positioning, product promotion, product pricing, and product distribution channels. Products that are highly process-driven, such as semiconductors, are overlooked. Another notable omission is in the area of platform product architectures, modular designs, and mass customization. The book is dominated by a paradigm of top-down systems engineering. The emphasis seems to be largely on product development processes that would arise from an organization whose strategic emphasis is technology leadership; variations in the product development process to support, for instance, technology licensing or fast-follower strategies are not identified.

Engineering and Product Development Management: The Holistic Approach would be useful reference for product development practitioners in aerospace, defense, construction, and similar make-to-order, business-to-business organizations. Practitioners in other industries would find valuable information, but would need supplementary information to get a more complete picture of product development nuances for make-to-stock, business-to-channel, entrepreneurial, technology licensing, and other scenarios. As a university text, the book would need to be supplemented with material related to product development for consumer industries. A professor adopting this book as a primary text would also have to develop exercises since none are provided.

REVIEWER

Michael W. Usrey

Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer

EnergyWindow, Inc.

Boulder CO, USA

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