Study On Auto Steering System Research&development Project Based On The Critical Chain Method

Automotive steering system product structure is complex, involving multiple technical fields of mechanical, electronics, software, safety management. Members in multinational project team are often distributed in a number of countries. So new product development projects of multinational automotive steering system have three characteristics: 1. many uncertainties in product development process; 2. resource conflicts exist in the project schedule due to resource constraints; 3. resources are difficult to deploy on time. These features will lead to serious time delay in the project schedule management process.Using Automotive steering system product development projects as example, paper introduce project schedule management standard processes and methods of Z Company in detail. Then paper analysis the existing problems in-depth of the management methods. As students syndrome and Parkinson’s law and other factors, resulting in a waste of time in the project plan security, making it impossible to cope with uncertainties. And because of the common misconception, the project plan always distributes many tasks to same resource for better efficiency. But the fact is that the project timing plan is always be delayed due to this action.Based on this background, this paper proposes a new type of project schedule management theory- critical chain method. The Z Company applied critical chain method and solved the 3 big problems which can affect the project timing plan by working time calculation optimization, working relationships change and buffer settings. In ensuring the safety of the project schedule, and also shorten the project development cycle.Finally, it used the critical chain buffer to achieve the project schedule control function. So that the project schedule deadline can avoid to be adjusted continually. This will improve the confidence of Z Company in the minds of customers.