When Do Concurrent Design Facilities Need to Be Flexible? Understanding the Limits of Fit With Novel Problem Types

Concurrent design facilities hold the promise of shorter design cycles with efficient cross-disciplinary integration. However, when an atypical design problem is encountered, the standard organization may be a poor fit to solve it, resulting in problems during the design process. This study examines the extent to which different types of novelty in design problems lead to poor fit with a standard organization, with implications for design process performance. We use an empirical study of a NASA concurrent design team to identify common perturbations in design problems, then a computational simulation to examine their effect on fit. The findings suggest that perturbations localized to one or a few designers are manageable within standard structures, but those with diffuse impacts may generate difficult-to-predict issues in the design process. These results suggest when concurrent design facilities can accommodate novel design problems and when they may need to adapt their design approaches.