Fractal Organization for Product Development in Robotics Industry

Abstract

In the current business environment, enterprises should be able to develop new products in a reasonably short period of time to satisfy customers’ demand as well as short product lifecycle. Furthermore, new product development is realized not only on an intra-enterprise level but also on an inter-enterprise level. Individual enterprises, especially small and medium enterprises, often do not have all the necessary skills and resources to develop new products. Therefore, finding the right and trustworthy partners and forming an organization for product development are important issues in developing new products. To find right partners and form an effective organization, it is necessary to measure trust values of other enterprises involved in product developments. The objective of this paper is to formulate a reference organizational architecture for product developments referred to as FrPDO (Fractal-based Product Development Organization model). A goal-oriented trust model and trust evaluation mechanisms for organizational formation are also developed. The fractal organization formation process is demonstrated for a new service robot development.