Integrated Product Development: The Case of Westinghouse Electronic Systems

Abstract

In the summer of 1993, Robert T. Barnes, general manager of the Manufacturing Operations Division for Westinghouse Electric Corporation’s Electronic Systems (ES), was reconsidering the organization’s approach to integrated product development (IPD). He knew IPD has exciting possibilities for overcoming chronic deficiencies in the company’s traditional serial approach to product development, but he was concerned about its effectiveness in several recent projects. Since 1990, ES had invested significant resources in investigating and understanding IPD and had developed guidelines for program managers and IPD cross-functional teams. An integrated development approach had been adopted, to varying degrees, in such major developmental projects as transmit/receive modules, modular radar, and low-temperature cofired ceramics. In reviewing progress to date. Barnes was attempting to identify what aspects of the multifunctional team approach really worked well and, more importantly, he hoped, how to institutionalized an IPD approach within ES.