A model of knowledge chain integration for complex product R&D projects based on DSM and TCPN

Abstract Complex product research and development projects usually are large scale with high cost and complex technologies and with large number of group members involved. From the perspective of complex system management, this paper adopts design structure matrix and timing constraint Petri nets (TCPN) to analyse knowledge behaviour and time constraints of team members in complex product R&D projects. In specific, this paper first develops a knowledge‐activity design structure matrix and a time‐resource design structure matrix model. Then a TCPN model that integrates resource constraints in knowledge chains is proposed based on the dependence relationship of team members' knowledge activities. Schedulabilities of the model are calculated, analysed and corrected to integrate team members' knowledge. Finally, a case study is conducted to test the proposed model.