System of systems thinking in product development: A system dynamic approach

Companies ceaselessly strive to have a systemic approach to survive. One of those approaches is system of system engineering (SoSE) that enables the decision-makers to understand the interaction of different systems in terms of costs, lead time, and quality. This paper considers product development (PD) in light of SoSE. Different PD stages treated as a system and analyzed to see the effects of concurrent engineering on total cost and lead time. We also analyze the marketing strategy with its components to have sound decision based on SoSE. We use a system dynamics approach and the study found that, the more cost allocated in early stage, the more reduced the total cost (by half) and the lead time reduced by a quarter. From marketing system analysis with interdependent variables, firms can control to a certain level. Some variables could be unpredictable and difficult to control as the system grows more complex.