Risk Quantification for New Product Design and Development in a Concurrent Engineering Environment

The challenges of product design and development in concurrent engineering are analysed. Bayesian Belief Networks are applied to map the relationships between risk events in a product's life-cycle. This approach enables the concurrency between risk items to be captured and the cumulative effects of dependencies between risk events to be determined. The inheritance of risks between different phases is modeled and quantified, which is impossible by traditional project management techniques. The combination of these factors has resulted in a user-interactive, unique dynamic risk management software package, which has been commercialised and deployed successfully by a major international manufacturer.