The House of CE+-a systematic framework for selecting the "right" practices

To be successful in a highly dynamic environment, with increased global competition, shorter life cycles, more demanding customers/users, and more complex products, different industries should take advantage of learning from each other's problems and solutions. On the other hand, commercial companies can learn from aerospace industries' traditional strengths, in the areas of requirements engineering, modeling and simulation, or systems engineering. A variety of potential synergies exists that should be exploited to the greatest possible extent. But what method or tool should we use, and when? For an effective application of methods and tools in product development, a comprehensive framework is needed, which supports the selection, coordination, and assessment according to domain- and company-specific needs and constraints. Unfortunately, tools and methods often are used because it is popular to use them, but not because they ideally support the solution of specific problems. Therefore, in this paper a systematic approach is proposed on how methods and tools can be selected for a successful product development system, independent of the industrial sector of a company, but dependent on its problems, market constraints, and declared goals. A structured model, the House of CE+ (CE+ means concurrent engineering and more), was derived from the analysis of different product development processes at commercial companies in Germany, England, and the US (Wenzel & Bauch 1996). In the House of CE+, the interdependencies and relations between goals and problems, essentials/processes, and practices can be structured.