Evaluation of Acceleration Effect of Dynamic Sequencing of Design Process in a Multiproject Environment

Abstract

The design process is difficult to accelerate due to its iterative nature, which increases project cost and delays completion time of a design project. Many previous studies tried to find the optimal structure and sequence of a design process minimizing iteration. In a multiproject environment, however, waiting time caused by resource shortage is a more critical reason for a lengthy project than iteration time. In this paper, we propose a novel sequencing method that reduces waiting time in a multiproject environment by dynamically changing the sequence of design tasks, according to availability of resources. It is called a dynamic sequencing method, as opposed to the traditional static sequencing method by which every design project follows a predefined optimal sequence. In order to evaluate the effect of this method, we developed a design-process model for simulating iteration and waiting in a multiproject environment. The simulation results show that dynamic sequencing is significantly better than traditional static sequencing with respect to average duration of projects. It is noted that more significant improvements can be obtained for the bottlenecked and unbalanced processes, both of which conditions would otherwise have negative effects on process performance.