Investigation of IPPD: a case study of the Marine Corps AAAV

Both Industry and Government Executives agree that collocation is a successful method of organizing Integrated Product Teams (IPTs) for Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD). While some research has addressed benefits and challenges of implementing collocated-IPTs within Government and Industry organizations, there is a lack of clarity on specific benefits and challenges of collocated-IPIs in a team-based organization. This study examines full-time members' views of collocation regarding the Marine Corps' Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle's (AAAV's) program. The AAAV program is the first major defense acquisition program (MDAP) in the Department of Defense (DoD) to collocate all appropriate full-time employees representing the Government Civilian, General Dynamics--the Contractor, subcontractors, and Marines--the customer. Research methods used to gather data consisted of phone and face-to- face interviews, and a survey. The interviews solicited elaboration on two main issues: (1) specific examples of benefits and challenges of collocation. (2) The survey identified the impact of collocation on specific management processes. (3) Findings show collocation as having a positive impact with strongest areas including: (1) "identifying potential problems," (2) "liaison with customer," and (3) "reducing project cycle time." The results suggest lessons to expand the benefits. of collocation on AAAV's performance, and offers a benchmark for other programs implementing collocated-IPTs. ; Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. ; Captain, United States Marine Corps ; http://archive.org/details/investigationofi109458581