Risk Management Capability Maturity and Performance of Complex Product and System (CoPS) Projects with an Asian Perspective

Risk Management Capability Maturity and Performance of Complex Product and System (CoPS) Projects with an Asian Perspective

Complex Products and Systems (CoPS) are high value, technology and engineering-intensive capital goods. The motivation of this study is the persistent high failure rate of CoPS projects, Asian CoPS provider's weak capability and lack of specific research on CoPS risk management. This paper evaluates risk management maturity level of CoPS projects against a general CoPS risk management capability maturity model (RM-CMM) developed by the authors. An Asian based survey was conducted to investigate the value of RM to project performance, and Asian (non-Japanese) CoPS implementers' perceived application of RM practices, their strengths and weaknesses. The survey result shows that higher RM maturity level leads to higher CoPS project performance. It also shows project complexity and uncertainty moderates the relationship between some RM practices and project performance, which implies that a contingency approach should be adopted to manage CoPS risks effectively. In addition, it shows that Asian CoPS implementers are weak in RM process and there are also rooms for improvement in the softer aspects of organizational capabilities and robustness.