Research On The Alignment Of R&d Organization With Product-family Structure

In this thesis, following the literature review of organization structure and product family, a theoretical framework and some research hypotheses are put forward. The R&D departments of an enterprise in different levels should research different kinds of products. When an organization encounters new requirement in product development, its R&D team should adapt itself to the new environment, then the structure of the R&D organization changes. On the basis of existing research results, this thesis analyses and explores the aligning relationship between R&D organization structure and product-family system based on multi-platforms in the context of a corporate company consisting of many technology centers.This research project employs case study as research methodology. The main case selelcted was a company located in Shenzhen which was transforming its R&D organization and constructuring family product.It is discovered that, on the group company level, it is likely that organization structure and product-family system based on multi-platforms align with each other while matching function organization structure with series product; on the divisional level, it is liekly that organization structure and product-family system based on multi-platforms align with each other while matching project organization structure with configurable product. Only if the group company achieves the alignment between R&D organization structure and product-family structure, it can avoid the conflict among branch companies and can realize resources sharing.While achieving the alignment between organization structure and product-family system based on multi-platforms, we also investigate the influence of several factors on the alignment relationships, such as product system differences among divisional R&D organizations, communication obstacles among R&D organizations on the divisional level and those between group company and divisional R&D technology centers; cross-division interactions.