Concurrent Engineering for Mission Design in Different Cultures

The satellite is a highly complex system due to the tight physical constraints, high reliability requirements, and the scale of the product. Except for some commercial missions, most of the satellites are designed from concept to optimally achieve their missions. Historically, the multidisciplinary team spent several months or even a year to finish the concept design. As the information technology revolution occurred in 1990’s, Integrated Concurrent Engineering (ICE) was invented to reduce cycle time and reduce resources but with higher quality. It is a new method of real-time team collaboration based on the quantitative computer-based calculations. It was introduced with significant success by JPL/NASA and The Aerospace Corporation. Some organizations followed in using ICE and also confirmed that the design period was reduced from months to weeks. Despite the remarkable successes of the ICE application in the United States and Europe, it is neither used nor well known in other parts of the world. The Japanese organizations, for instance, provide complex products and show their presence world wide, but there is no report of an organization utilizing the ICE approach. They applied the concurrent engineering in manufacturing long ago. It is unclear what brought this situation. The ICE approach has been well examined from the systems engineering perspective but not from the cultural aspect. This thesis analyzes the ICE approach to identify the key factors for successful implementation and operation from both systems engineering and cultural perspectives through the case studies of a implementation failure in a Japanese organization and some successes in Euro-American organizations. Then, the author proposes several ways for successful implementation in the Japanese organization and proposes how the ICE should be approached and be utilized to leverage the design capability of the organization. Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Donna H. Rhodes, Senior Lecturer, Engineering System Division