A simulation approach for evaluation and improvement of organisational planning in collaborative product development projects

Human behaviour and organisational structure impact collaborative product development outcome on a large scale. Therefore, companies are continuously seeking new opportunities to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and predictability of their collaborative product development projects, and to develop innovative principles for organisational design and management such as multi-functional teams. However, there are many factors which have to be considered and assessed to systematically optimise organisational planning in respect of team configuration, structure organisation, and human behaviour. This paper proposes an agent-based simulation methodology to evaluate and improve the organisational planning in complex product development projects. An agent-based integrated simulation model is formulated which can explicitly represent human behaviour, organisational interactions, and tasks networks. Based on the model, the design agent structure and behaviour protocols are studied in detail, and a simulation platform is developed. Finally, the methodology is evaluated in a collaborative roadway design project, and several management insights are established, which are proven to be effective for the organisational optimisation. The results of the case study also show that the methodology can effectively support the evaluation and improvement of organisational planning.