NMX Multi-Project Pipeliner™

The NMX Multi-Project Pipeliner™ shows teams whether total resource demand from projects in the execution pipeline exceeds availability during the target time horizon.

Because it operates in conjunction with IC Project Planner, Pipeliner alerts managers in the early stages of project planning as to whether enough staffing of each role is available to finish all projects on schedule. Project Planner, automatically generates monthly staffing requirements for individual IC projects by assessing each chip’s design complexity. Semiconductor companies throughout the industry use Project Planner to estimate individual project staffing requirements. Pipeliner gives them capability to instantaneously analyze all projects in the execution pipeline.

Project staffing estimates from IC Project Planner flow directly into Pipeliner, giving users a complete view of the execution pipeline from the moment the engineering manager provides a rough description of the new chip’s specs. Estimates from Project Planner guide the creation of bottom-up plans. Once bottom-up plans are available, they replace the corresponding Planner estimates previously fed to Pipeliner. Allowing mixing of estimates from Project Planner and bottom-up plans enables Pipeliner to provide managers with the most up-to-date and accurate estimate of total headcount consumption.

With Pipeliner, managers:

• Get a reliable estimate of the pipeline’s total headcount requirements
• Get an indication of whether projected staffing consumption exceeds availability of each role (i.e. logic designers, verification engineers, etc.)
• Can analyze staffing among work groups and different geographic development sites.

The combination enables managers to forecast peak staffing demands and identify resource conflicts among projects, workgroups, sites and individual roles.

Managers can use Pipeliner to develop resource forecasts associated with long-range IC product development roadmaps. Business lines creating roadmaps for 3- to 5-year time horizons typically have great difficulty generating reliable estimates of the engineering resources needed to implement their roadmaps. A critical aspect of the roadmap development process is identifying major gaps between the product roadmap and the resources needed to implement it. The combination of Project Planner and Pipeliner provides a rapid and reliable solution to this challenge.

Figure 1. Graphical view in NMX Multi-Project Pipeliner of the resource demand of each individual project generated by IC Project Planner. Each profile is an individual project. FTE = Full Time Equivalent Person. Figure 2 below shows the sum of all the resources.

Figure 2. NMX Multi-Project Pipeliner sums of the demand of all projects in the execution pipeline (shown in Figure 1) and simultaneously displays the total available staffing (horizontal line). In this example, demand exceeds availability starting in 2008 and continuing until 2009. Figure 3 below shows the consumption of each role in the Pipeline

Figure 3. NMX Multi-Project Pipeliner generates a table displaying total utilization of each role for all projects in the execution pipeline (Figures 1 & 2) above on monthly basis.