Methodologies for Product Development Excellence

In this thesis, a modern and innovative methodology and specifically with EPM Cost Deployment, a vital pillar of the World Class Engineering program proposed by FCA, is presented. After presenting a Literature review on the topics of Product Development, Automotive Product Development and Toyota Product Development System (TPDS), the work introduces the methodological framework of World Class Engineering and gives focus on the EPM Cost Deployment. EPM Cost Deployment is one of the best tools to identify waste and losses in the product development project and minimize or eliminate related cost. It is structured in seven steps. The identification of waste and losses in product development and detection of where they take place are the first two steps. Then, causal losses and resultant losses are separated and related in step three. Next, in step four, the identified waste and losses are translated into costs. In step five, responsible departments and processes are determined, and proper methods and tools are chosen to attack the identified waste and losses. After that, the amount of possible savings and related time, costs and resources consumed are estimated in step six. The last step is to evaluate the achieved results and follow-up to the next run. A case study taken from the application of the EPM Cost Deployment within FCA is presented.