TOS – PGPEM 2018-2020 HAGAR SUDHA (1816062)

TOS Assignment 2: Ducati Corse: The Making of a Grand Prix Motorcycle

What are the various elements (at a firm/business level) of a design strategy?

The various elements of a design strategy are first – modularity, this would ease the
development process by reducing the testing time and helps quickly bring incremental changes
where the major components and subsystems would be more independent and in many cases
could be changed without affecting the rest of the bike as envisioned by Preziosi, unlike the
GP3 and GP4 bikes. Second - limit design changes, changes should be incremental and
minimal, no major changes should be done from one release or generation to generation as it
could bring inconsistences and overall product instability. Third – products should have
minimal changes at the user interface, like in bikes, it could be controls that the rider should
use, it should never change otherwise it brings distraction to the rider making him loosing focus
from riding or in the case of Boeing planes leading to crashes which could be averted if the
pilots were trained to use the new technology unlike Ducati’s introduction to new changes for
a rider to use weeks before the race (2 weeks before) is a huge risk.

Fourth – designs have to be simulated first to get through the best and worst case scenarios
along with the interface testing stubs ahead of starting real testing with the users involved, this
could speed up the process and bring in stability in the system. Fifth – the design architecture
and subsystems would contribute to the organizational structure (Refer Exhibit-2), as the
organization structure is directly derived from the product or process architecture. Sixth –
design strategy should be inline with the bigger picture of the organization as seen in the case
of Ducati, the technology and designs that were being developed for the MotoGP was to be
eventually incorporated into commercial road bikes, the best knowledge that could be
borrowed would be the 4 stroke engine inspiration for road bikes, to do away with pollution
and increase efficiency through complete combustion of fuel.

Seventh – Testing should always be planned, and it is the most important component of a
design, since testing suites determine the quality of the product, improper testing could lead to
product failures and negative brand reputation as was the case with Ducati in 2004 MotoGP.
Eighth – The rider’s feedback is very important to overall design restructuring, as it closes the
loop for results perceived from the simulations, and brings entirety to the product testing.
Eventually riders determine the quality of the product (also in a broad sense a rider is a
consumer here, like with most products). Ninth – Design maturity to accommodate
components that would be traded off after contemplating the final design, like here the power
and engine tradeoff in preliminary design, designs should be flexible. Tenth – Finding the right
balance between the feedbacks given and the engineer’s advice, since some of the feedbacks
could be just false alarms, and if the design changes were done based on false alarms, then this
could lead to product instability and re-work ending up with huge debug time and increase in
time to market, as a solution to counter this Ducati employs a mechanism of taking feedback
from 2 riders to determine the credibility of the feedback, if both feedbacks are good only then
the product qualifies, and each rider’s feedback is pitted against the other to find the genuine
and accurate feedback of them both, factoring the human factor to it.

Lastly, the design should always be user friendly and empowering the customer to have a better
control of the system as a whole, but this should be achieved subtly with minimal controls
(Like in the case of UI designs, the most impactful UIs are the ones that are simplest to use)

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TOS – PGPEM 2018-2020 HAGAR SUDHA (1816062)

Do you agree with Preziosi’s decision to move to the modular design strategy? What are
trade-offs inherent in that strategy?

The modular design strategy move by Preziosi is the right decision keeping the larger picture
in mind. The biggest change as contemplated by Preziosi was to incorporate highly modular
design which would bring in flexibility since major sub systems would be more independent
and in many cases could be changed without affecting the rest of the bike and reducing design
cycle time and using modules designed earlier at the same time facilitating parallel design
changes. Preziosi’s vision for Ducati to out perform its competitors with superior engineering
and design would require quick modifications in designs and technologies from subsequent
vehicle generations of GP bikes and easing testing by testing various modules one at a time
which can be achieved by modular design strategy alone by decoupling different modules.

Building rigorous modularization strategies would help derive competitive advantage for
Ducati by reducing developmental costs, increasing the possibility to accommodate future
changes/additions into subsystems, as this requires higher impact on component knowledge
(Refer Exhibit-1) and even hurtling one sales record to another over a long run during
commercialization, modularity in product architecture leads to modularity in organization
design as well. (Refer Exhibit -2). Unlike Modular design strategy, in integrated design strategy
one change to the bike could require significant changes throughout the bike, which is not
feasible as rightly identified by Preziosi, integrated design leads to major setup changes for the
rider, whose only focus is to “ride fast” and thereof results in lack of user friendliness.

Tradeoffs inherent in the modular strategy are first - performance optimization of the whole
system becomes difficult, since each module has to dealt separately and performance for each
of the module has to be derived and the integration of these corresponds to system performance.
Second – modular design decreases the speed of the system, since modular design has a great
deal of overhead as it has to function well in so many situations across modules and thus less
energy efficient. Third – in integrated design the rider is integral to the system and other
modules including the engine are built around it but that’s not true with modular design, each
one is treated more or less as modules. Fourth – integrated designs are very robust compared
to the modular designs.

Fifth – testing is elaborate in modular designs and even cumbersome, hence difficult to test
multiple changes in designs quickly especially if the changes were done in multiple modules
(as seen in case with 60% of 915 individual components of the new bike were totally different
with Ducati bike in GP4). Sixth – initial timeline is large in modular design, compared to
integrated design, since the entire system has to be broken down into subsystems very
cautiously to make the system efficient and connected. Seventh - initial investments in
modular design is higher especially if it involves system reconfiguration which may involve
disrupting the existing flow of the product pipeline.

Eighth – interfaces between modules are often common sources of errors, since there could be
connectivity issues, wear and tear or unexpected exceptions at interfaces that are not handled
accurately, primarily because output of one module could sometimes be the input to the other.
Ninth - supplier risk is involved, since the supplier base and the services needed would change
and companies have to share information and technical expertise to ensure suppliers deliver
according to the new specifications and cost. Tenth – for architecture flexibility alone if
integrated designs are used for low cost products then it could be a cost additive and would
eventually translate into a heavy product.

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TOS – PGPEM 2018-2020 HAGAR SUDHA (1816062)

EXHIBITS

Exhibit -1: Henderson Clark Model

Product architecture

Process architecture Organization structure

Exhibit-2: Architecture and organization relationship