Product Breakdown Structure (PBS)

There is a PBS (opens new window) (Google Sheets) that helps us manage the work:

• What parts make the product
• Have those parts been designed; are the problems
• What can person X do right now, to proceed the product
• Are we there, yet

The main aims of the PBS are to enable modularity, and help communication.

Modularity

Modularity is essential for distributed work. It allows faster progress, better risk handling and testability of designs.

Modularity provides autonomy. If I'm working on a particular piece, as long as I keep within the design constraints (weight budget, cost budget, strength requirements, outside interfaces), I am free to do as I want.

Modularity is also dictated by the tools (Fusion 360) that we use. We have split the model to individual sub-projects so that people wouldn't need to work on the same model, at one time. Though there are tools to handle these in the CAD world (as in software), it inevitably leads to "conflict resolution" which is mostly friction.

Note: The PBS componentization should be reflected in the way CAD model is split into sub-projects. Now (May 2020) there's at least one project (trays and end pipes) where this is not true. An indication of this is that such a project contains PBS numbers from different ranges (#113 and #111, in this case).

Multi-level testability is vital for keeping momentum up. When you know that the parts of your design match their requirements - or you know which requirements they don't - you can work on them, without needing to "dive in" to unnecessary debugging.

Modularity allows us to define test criteria in such various levels and we can use PBS for highlighting the test pass states. This all adds to the confidence and feeling of progress. It creates FUN! 🐸

Communication

People misunderstand things. We do. ^[1]

To counteract this, to protect a project, and to avoid wasted efforts, clear communications matters greatly. One of the ways PBS facilitates this is giving all parts unique id's so people don't mention "that screw" or "such beam" but the precise part numbers.

A second way PBS helps comms, is providing a single data point about reality. The designers will all see the same maturity - and if something is not like you think it should be, you can raise the concern. No "I thought that was finished!" feelings.

Other use

We can add more data, e.g. time estimates, feeling colors (red, yellow, green, blue) etc. as we wish.

The PBS is based on Wintergatan PBS (opens new window) (Google Sheets), presented in Episode #57 (opens new window) (Youtube Oct 2018; 18:27).

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1. You probably misunderstood that sentence. 😃 ↩︎