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WP096: Improving Project Performance by Predicting Engineering Impacts on Operations Failure Risks Using a Quantitative Model of Product, Organization, Process, and Environment

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract
Producing manned space missions, new cancer drugs, and civil facilities all involve an expensive design and development effort that culminates in operations that are at risk of technical failure. Today, few existing social science and engineering theories offer sufficient precision to support specific decisions involving project tradeoffs among operations failure risks and programmatic considerations (such as development schedule and cost). The aim of this research is to precisely identify theory-based mechanisms by which management choices influence engineering processes—specifically the failure to complete necessary rework— that creates product flaws which jeopardize downstream operational success, and to quantify the degree to which these phenomena are likely to manifest for a given project. We propose a quantitative method for analyzing these risks by modeling the interdependencies among upstream engineering and downstream operations considerations. The proposed model integrates the Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) model of product functions and operating environments, with the Virtual Design Team (VDT) simulation model of engineering organizations and processes. This research offers a formal definition of the ways in which many theoretical factors (such as component redundancy, human error, constructive oversight, and information processing) that are chosen in the design phase may subsequently interact to determine operational phase failure risk. The integrated model is intuitively more justified for interdependent project planning applications than either model alone because most failures involve interactions among product, organization, process, and environmental factors. The proposed model offers project planners a more holistic assessment of operational failure risks and a broader range of testable mitigation strategies than models that are limited to consider the operations stage alone.

Description

Type of resource text
Date created June 2005

Creators/Contributors

Author Chachere, John

Subjects

Subject CIFE
Subject Center for Integrated Facility Engineering
Subject Stanford University
Subject Coordination
Subject Decision Analysis
Subject Design
Subject Design Theory
Subject Organization Models
Subject Planning
Subject Process Models
Subject Product Models
Subject Reliability Theory
Subject Risk Analysis
Subject Simulation
Subject VDT
Subject Virtual Design Team
Genre Technical report

Bibliographic information

Location https://purl.stanford.edu/zz183dr4753

Access conditions

Use and reproduction
User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.

Preferred citation

Chachere, John. (2005). WP096: Improving Project Performance by Predicting Engineering Impacts on Operations Failure Risks Using a Quantitative Model of Product, Organization, Process, and Environment. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/zz183dr4753

Collection

CIFE Publications

Contact information

cife-email@stanford.edu

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