Variations as Activity Patterns: A Basis for Project Planning in PGE – Product Generation Engineering

Abstract The model of PGE – Product Generation Engineering describes the development of new technical products as follows: subsystems from one or more existing technical systems are the basis and starting point for every development. This is referred to as the “reference system”. It determines the structure and subsystems of a new product or serves as a basis for new development activities, respectively. Considering the role of the reference system, a new technical product is a new product generation. The development of each of its subsystems is one of three types of variation: carry over variation, embodiment variation and principle variation. The latter two are the share of new development. The iPeM – integrated Product engineering Model describes the development as a combination of activities, e.g. “detect ideas”, “verify and validate” or “built up prototype”. This contribution investigates the relation between the three types of variation and the activities of product engineering, by answering the following research questions: •Which activities of product engineering are necessary to implement the different variations in PGE? •Which factors influence this relationship between activities of product engineering and variations in PGE? Answers to these questions build up on interviews with eleven experts from development practice and two cases by authors of this contribution. The results show that the implementation of each variation in PGE includes several different activities of product engineering. Furthermore, this set of activities depends on the type of variation. Taking into account additional observations the idea of variations as company specific activity patterns is developed: each type of variation in PGE is related to a set of activities of product engineering where the characteristics of these relations depend on company-specific factors but can be similar across several development projects of this company. Hence, using those activity patterns process planning, including innovative potential, cost and risk estimation, is possible.