An application of the Design Structure Matrix to Integrated Concurrent Engineering

This paper demonstrates an application of the Design Structure Matrix (DSM) to Integrated Concurrent Engineering (ICE), an approach to conceptual space systems design intended to increase the pace of work by bringing together all relevant personnel in the same room to conduct focused, collaborative one-week design studies. Although the DSM methodology explicitly incorporates the concurrent aspects of engineering design, it has not been applied formally to an integrated, rapid design environment such as ICE. In this paper, a DSM consisting of 172 design parameters and 682 dependencies is constructed to represent the typical process employed at the Mission Design Laboratory (MDL), an ICE facility at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Analysis of the DSM reveals an optimal sequencing among five phases of the ICE design process, the interdependent disciplines in the design team, and a set of starting assumptions that can be made at the outset of the work to facilitate a more structured approach to the highly complex and iterative process of space systems design.