Integrated Product Development Planning
within Distributed Organizations using ProcessEdge™

Azad M. Madni, Ph.D. and Carla Conaway Madni
Intelligent Systems Technology, Inc.

Jeff Plaut and David Zarnow
Raytheon Company

Abstract

After a series of acquisitions, major aerospace companies are still consolidating their infrastructures and processes. One of the more challenging issues is consolidating the systems engineering infrastructure. This is because each acquired company has its own systems engineering processes and best practices despite the fact that all have embraced integrated product process development (IPPD) and recently released systems engineering standard. Compounding the problem is the fact that each organization has a legacy of tools, applications, and databases that produce sufficiently different outputs that it becomes near impossible to reconcile them. This paper presents a "view from the trenches" as a major aerospace company took on this challenge. The circumstances, approach, and findings from this work should resonate with practitioners in the field while providing them with insights of future undertakings.

From: Madni, A.M., Madni, C.C., Plaut, J., and Zarnow, D., Proceedings of the Integrated Design and Process Technology Conference, (IDPT-2002), Pasadena, CA, June 23-28, 2002.