Data analysis of new product development projects (honey well sensing and control business) to predict project health and success

Abstract

The portfolio of New Product Development (Engineering Design) projects in Honeywell Sensing and Control business is tracked using a tool called VPM (Velocity Portfolio Manager). At present there are several issues impacting New Product Development in Honeywell Sensing and Control, the major ones being - numerous projects that were approved without proper opportunity assessment, low-value projects with long Cycle Times locking up critical resources, large variance between Planned and Actual schedule, large variance between Current Plan and Target Revenues and variance between Current Plan and Target values of other key project parameters. The problem that the management is seeking to solve today is to optimize the deck of New Product Development projects to ensure higher returns on investment and lower the uncertainty in achieving the targets. The idea is also to identify and abort projects that have a low likelihood of completion, at the beginning of the life cycle. The present project analyzes the NPD project data in VPM, goes through available literature on success criteria in NPD projects and finds the key attributes leading to success ( Completed status) or failure ( Cancelled status) of a project. The conclusions from the data analysis is that relatively smaller projects(Project Type as Minor, Major) with a higher green count and yellow count in Project Dashboard, a higher Total Delay and higher positive Variance in IRR have higher chances of getting Completed . It is interesting that projects with higher Total Delay have a higher chance of reaching a Completed status. This indicates a tendency to go ahead with a project, despite slippages.