Linking Cyclicality and Product Quality
Manuel E. Sosa, Jürgen Mihm, Tyson R. Browning
Manufacturing & Service Operations Management · 2013 · Volume 15 · Issue 3
Abstract
This paper examines the impact of architectural decisions on the level of defects in a product. We view products as collections of components linked together to work as an integrated whole. Previous work has established modularity (how decoupled a component is from other product components) as a critical determinant of defects, and we confirm its importance. Yet our study also provides empirical evidence for a relationship between product quality and cyclicality (the extent to which a component depends on itself via other product components). We find cyclicality to be a determinant of quality that is distinct from, and no less important than, modularity. Extending this main result, we show how the cyclicality–quality relationship is affected by the centrality of a component in a cycle and the distribution of a cycle across product modules. These findings, which are based on an analysis of open source software development projects, have implications for the study and design of complex systems.
Keywords
product architecture, cycles, modularity, iterative problem solving, defects
Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.