Product development process improvement: A review of Design Structure Matrix methods

Abstract

Iteration is an important characteristic of the design process. The Design Structure Matrix (DSM) is a powerful method allowing modelling, analysis, and optimisation of iterations in the design process. Boosted by the concepts of concurrent engineering, it has been widely developed during the decades by researchers from both academia and industry. The objective of this paper is to provide a review of different DSM based techniques used to improve the performance of the product development process.