Impacts of module–module aligned patterns on risk cascading propagation in complex product development (CPD) interdependent networks

Complex product development (CPD) can be abstracted as interdependent networks with a network of organizations executing a network of components. Risk cascading propagation caused by the failure of a few components occurs frequently and makes the CPD interdependent networks vulnerable. This paper mainly focuses on the impacts of organization–component​ executing patterns on the risk propagation in CPD interdependent networks considering the limited risk resisting capacity of organizations. Firstly, the CPD interdependent networks are generated considering the modular structure of the product network and organization network in CPD projects. Secondly, a new risk propagation model is proposed combining the epidemic model (SIR) and load–capacity model to tailor the different risk propagation mechanisms in and between networks. Thirdly, three types of module–module aligned patterns, i.e., fully aligned, partially aligned, and randomly aligned are identified between the CPD interdependent networks. Finally, the impacts of the three aligned patterns on the risk propagation are investigated by numerical simulations. The results show that under two failure modes at the initial disruption, i.e., random failure (RA) of components distributed in various modules and intentional failure (IN) of components centralized in one module, the risk propagations in the CPD interdependent networks mainly experience three stages, i.e., expanding, shrinking, and stabling. The aligned patterns have important impacts on network robustness and propagation velocity. Fully aligned pattern significantly improves the robustness of CPD interdependent networks and reduces the propagation velocity at the expanding stage. Under the failure mode RA, the robustness of the CPD interdependent networks with different aligned patterns are ranked as fully aligned, partially aligned, and randomly aligned. This research is meaningful to construct robust CPD projects and effectively mitigate the risk cascading propagation.