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Think of the “wasted energy” involved with products that require rework, redesigns, or fail to meet customer needs. In addition, a great deal of time and effort is often put into products after they have been developed to make them more profitable.
The goal of this article series is to help organizations proactively focus on maximizing customer value of products, and minimizing cost of operations during the product development process. Readers will also improve their understanding of problem solving and process improvement tools and methodologies. Some articles will provide high-level perspective while others will deep-dive into specifics.
While product development is not always perfect, companies can emphasize teamwork, establish a framework for innovation & problem solving, and eliminate waste. Meanwhile, employees can develop transferable, marketable skillsets with their knowledge of problem solving tools and methodologies. This article series will also help contribute to these objectives.
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In a previous article, we covered value stream concepts and characterized the value stream in the context of supply chain major sub-processes. We covered some important key performance indicators related to order fulfillment.
This article will look at work-in-process (WIP) and inventory using the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model.
In recent articles we covered value stream concepts and characterized the value stream in the context of supply chain major sub-processes. We summarized the manufacturing value stream according to the following process blocks:
In two recent articles we covered the management of a contract manufacturer (CM) value stream. We also covered NPI materials management within that model distinguishing NPI materials management from NPI project management.
A sometimes overlooked function of production planning, is materials management for new product introduction (NPI).
In our previous article, we covered fundamentals of managing contract manufacturers (CM) value streams. The goal for NPI is similar: we want NPI prototypes available per a prototype plan and (eventually) a production plan.
Below is a simplified value stream map for a managing a contract manufacturer using “plan, source, order, make, deliver” as major subprocesses. The planning function “NPI Materials Manager” is shown with corresponding interfaces and is the focus of this article.
This article will cover the management of a contract manufacturer (CM) value stream from the perspective of a company that has outsourced the manufacturing of its product. A typical CM model is most likely “turn-key” such that the “Company” purchases the only finished goods from the CM.
Part/component purchases are a shared responsibility between the company and CM. Company-controlled suppliers have negotiated pricing and purchased orders may be placed by the company or the CM for long-lead and specialty items.
Ultimately, the liability for part/component inventory rests on the company. For this reason, minimizing inventory, maximizing inventory turns, and value stream flexibility are some major objectives of managing a CM.
In this final article of the series, we will cover the right leg of the “V” diagram which illustrates the process of verifying and integrating hardware into the system.
In Part 1 and Part 2 of this article series, we described validation engineering as the process of validating, monitoring and execution of product requirements to ensure customer needs are met. The validation engineer is the validation process owner and works with subject matter experts to develop complete, accurate and testable requirements.
[Read more…]In Part 1 of this article series, we described validation engineering as the process of validating, monitoring and execution of product requirements to ensure customer needs are met. The validation engineer is the validation process owner and works with subject matter experts to develop complete, accurate and testable requirements.
[Read more…]In this article we’ll look at the technical leg of project management that enables the development of a hardware product.
Let’s start with a simplified definition of project management:
The planning, monitoring and execution of the project within scope, schedule and resource constraints. The project manager works with subject matter experts to establish a work breakdown structure and facilitates the execution of WBS activities and deliverables. Ultimately, the goal is good project quality within the scope, schedule and resource constraints. However, good product quality and reliability depends on systems/validation engineering.
[Read more…]
Often, when the completion of a task or deliverable is needed, a meeting is a good way to establish mutual understanding of the way forward. With many resources working remote these days, effective meetings are taking on even greater importance.
In a previous article, we compared and contrasted the definition of a requirement, with a ‘story’, which is used in agile/scrum. In that article, we stated: “requirements and stories establish a clear understanding of customer needs in the context of desired functionality”.
What if we want to establish a clear understanding of a customer’s needs in the context of desired business functionality? The customer can be an internal or external customer, business functionality can be a business process (IT-enabled or otherwise).
A complex production process requires a mixture of leadership, governance and management. In this article, we’ll discuss a tiered meetings structure that can effectively enable this. Empowerment, escalation paths, accountability and responsibility are included as some key ingredients. We’ll start with the following diagram:
In reviewing several previous articles in this article series, it’s apparent there is much in common with product development, project management and process improvement.
Let’s look at a brief list that considers a structured approach vs. unstructured
While this list is pretty “high-level” it reveals the importance of project leadership, governance and management. A structured approach (for example a phase-gate structure, DMAIC or agile/scrum) enables management and planning, which enables governance and governance enables leadership.
Some structured approaches may be more suitable than others depending on the type of project. However, any structure (with leadership, governance and management in mind) is probably better than none.
Our previous article identified several forms of waste, specific to completing tasks, as detailed by the following table:
Keep in mind, by focusing on tasks, this table assumes several things:
Our previous article compared agile/scrum with lean/kaizen and revealed several similar fundamentals that helped make each methodology easier to understand.
Since the objective of lean and agile is waste reduction, we also want to identify and eliminate various forms of waste.
In order to do this, first let’s consider our objective to manufacture hardware product, develop a hardware or digital product and/or execute a project:
