Team New Zealand
The New Zealand was more limited than other teams in terms of resources; such as, money, team size, and access to computer time. However, the team attempted to use this as an advantage by having a small team that regularly met to work out the best strategies.
Advantages:
Simulation is resource (time, money) efficient:
The team could create a simulation of a new design every three hours.
Money savings from not having to build a physical yacht. It costs $50,000 per prototype and because silicon graphics lend computer simulation time, simulations were not as expensive
Avoid problems of scale-up because models are smaller size and prototypes may not reflect actual issues.
Ability to understand trade-offs between differences in designs.
Disadvantages:
Sponsors want to see a physical prototype, which requires spending money to build the prototype.
Simulation needs to be done after physical prototype has been built, so it is difficult to rely only on simulation.
Simulation relies on the designer. If the design parameters are not accurate, there is no value added from outcome of the simulation.
Approach
American Team had the backing of Cray and Boeing for the extensive computer simulations, while Team New Zealand only had a small local company that provided some support late in the development program.
Team New Zealand management was open to feedback and team consensus approach was used for the design. They also used Peterson’s experience and training.
Australian Team relied heavily on simulation and their boat sunk in early trials.
Conclusion
Team New Zealand should build two boats. However, these should be built at different times.
The first boat will be used to create a baseline for the development team to provide direct back to the modeling and design team on the final design. The second boat will have all the implementations and improvements from the first design. For example: the keel (main component of the yacht) could be adjusted for enhanced performance.