The Essence Of Product Development

New products and the refinement of existing products are the life's blood of Best Plants. Without a product to build, there justisn't much point to a manufacturing plant, and the Best Plants know the importance of a robust product development strategy and process to their long-term welfare. Therefore, whenever possible, the plants become experts in the creation and development of products. That ability, which is a primary requirement in the journey to quality, agility, and customer satisfaction, is the fourth supporting competency of Best Plants.

The level of a plant's product design and development responsibility differs widely among the Best Plants. Some of the plants have only a small degree of input into the process; corporate-level staff consults them regarding the manufacturiability of a design, but little else. Others among the plants are active partners in large portions of the design process, but do not control the process itself or its outcome. Still others, however, are the sole captains of their product fleets. No matter what level of product development responsibility is invested in a plant, one thing is certain: Best Plants live or die by the success or failure of their products.

 

Accordingly, there are few Best Plants willing to completely pass the product development buck. They know that, at the very least, their input regarding

the manufacturability, quality, assembly, and procurement of components, parts, and materials of a design can have an immense impact on the speed with which a product appears in the marketplace, its final cost, an the level of acceptance it enjoys with customers.

The product development and design efforts at the Best Plants are characterized by two major themes, both of which relate to integration. First, these processes are usually run by cross-functional teams that integrate the demands, needs, and limitations of a wide selection of product "constituents." Best Plants involve their extended enterprise in their product development cycles. Often, these teams include representation from all the major functions in their business, their suppliers, and their customers in the process of creating new goods.

Second, the product development process embraces a wide variety of tools and techniques. The integration of product development methodologies and technologies enables the Best Plants to reduce a product's time to market ensures that the characteristics of the product match the needs of its intended customers, and guarantees the ability of a plant to profitably manufacture the product.

Further, these two trends - an integrated team-based structure and an integrated approach to the tools and techniques of product development - are intimately related. The combined talents of a team and its ability to act concurrently, that is, to conduct multiple activities at the same time, are a necessary support of n integrated process that utilizes a wide-ranging collection of development techniques. Conversely, a strategy that interweaves many different product development techniques cannot reach timely completion without a structure that allows for a concurrent effort.

Teaming up forproduct development

The Best Plants approach to product development is overwhelmingly team based. Internal teams, with memberships spanning the full range of plant and business functions, are at work constantly in these facilities. In several cases, the plants have freated development labs, a sort of common ground where the various functional experts can model the manufacture of new products to gain greater insight into the ramifications of their designs. In others, the entire workforce has been included in an enterprise wide effort to develop new product ideas and concepts. Even the product development process itself is subject to team-based improvement approaches.

In keeping with their extended-enterprise perspective, the Best Plants build extended-product teams. They invite their suppliers into the development process to reduce cycle times and ensure the procurability of their designs. Most important, they include their customers in the development process as often as they are able. Customer input directly feeds the idea-creation process, shapes the initial prototypes, and tests and approves the final product.

As one part in a five-year program that fundamentally changed the entire company's structure and culture, teams were established as the operating structure of choice in the product development process at Super Sack's Fanin County, Texas, facilities. Starting at the top of the organizational chart, the plant's Strategic Planning Team, which is composed of employees representing sales, marketing, engineering, manufacturing, quality, and the company's leadership, mets monthly to oversee product development. The team approves product development capital, sets project goals and deadlines, and reviews the progress of current projects.

"Our manufacturing processes have been improved by involving our teams in the design process from the start," says vice president David Kellenberger. "Sometimes, team involvement may increase the design time for new products. Reaching consensus can take longer for a diverse team than a single manager. The important difference is that our teams are also more positive about changing to a new product because they have been integral to the design. This results in higher quality and productivity."

Marlow Industries introduces an average of six new thermoelectric cooler designs each month, most of which are custom-developed to perform to its customers' specifications. Heavily reliant on concurrent and process engineering. Marlow's development system accomplishes its new product goals using a cross-functional design effort lead by Release to Production (RTP) teams. RTP teams meet weekly to oversee the design and technical details of developing products.

Marlow has established an RTP team for each market segment served by the company. The teams are composed of operators and engineers and they are, according t view president Ed Burke, " the most effective source for our reductions in the product development cycle." The team concept coupled with a detailed development procedure helps the plant ensure its devices are being built "right the first time" and also helps the company maintain a continuous focus on the all-important flow of new products.

One measure of the success of Marlow's design and development process is clearly evidenced by the fact that the company was able to shift its primary business away from military customers, who accounted for 75 per cent of sales in 1989, and build a new base of commercial customers, who by 1993 accounted for 55 per cent of the company's annual sales. Further, this shift was accomplished, without a loss in sales volume or profits, with a team-based process that has recorded 100 per cent first-article success and a 50 per cent reduction in product cost.

MEMC Electronic Materials of Saint Peters, Missouri, employs cross functional product development teams in its search for continuous reductions in design cycle times. MEMC's teams include participants from quality assurance, manufacturing, and manufacturing engineering, as well as R&D. Interestingly, the company says it is purposely moving away from lab-based product design and prefers to develop new product enhancements on the production floor, where the more practical considerations of manufacturability are better understood.

The Saint Peters silicon wafer manufacturing plant uses a formal seven-step process for designing products and services that incorporates a "mechanistic" approach to design phases and clearly specifies team responsibilities and tools. To create an interdisciplinary perspective among team members, the company often gives its R&D engineers a few production responsibilities. Conversely, manufacturing process engineers are assigned some R&D project responsibility.

"Both manufacturing and development engineers have significant statistical training and use statistical design of experiments to shorten development cycle time," explains manufacturing manager Perry Lee. "The braod perspectives and interaction obtained as a result contribute significantly to mastering the cycle time of specific new enhancements."

In the past, many manufacturing plants have had little input to the product design process. But with increased use of team-based functions and greater understanding of the contribution that manufacturing employees can make to the process, their involvement is increasing. Diane Breedlove, operations director of Coherent's Aalifornia, plant explains manufacturing's role as follows:

The Electronic Products Division is the manufacturing arm for Coherent Laser Division in Santa Clara. Products are designed and developed in Santa Clara and sent to Auburn for manufacgturing. In order to shorten the product development cycle between the two divisions, a very close relationship in the early stages of the de-sign is coordinated. Auburn's

purchasing, engineering, managem- ent, and direct-labor employees are represented during the prototype and first-article releases.

Milwaukee electric Tools' Jackson Plant is another plant that has little direct product development responsibility. Nevertheless, it plays an active role in the design process. Manufacturing-cell team members participate in new-product development from the outset of the cycle under its design for manufacturability focus. The result, according to plant manager Harry Peterson, is the elimination of prototype and manufacturing start-up problems, and a 35 per cent reduction in the cycle's time to market.

Northrop Gruman's Naval Systems' plant in Cleveland, Ohio, involved its entire workforce in the development of new products. While owned by Westinghouse electric, the plant reduced its dependence on military contracts by actively soliciting and developing ideas for commercial products from its workforce (for details, see Individual Profiles). As soon as these ideas were ready for the drawing board, the plant used a concurrent engineering approach, which included marketing, design, purchasing, and manufacturing staff, to fast-track the development process. In this way, the plant ensured the products were developed with minimum cost, maximum operator efficiency, and the highest possible yield. This plant collocates all key development personnel to promote teamwork and communication.

Another way in which the Best Plants bring together all the different functions involved in product development process is through the establishment of development labs. Cadillac's Hamtramck Plant created such a facility in its Assembly Line Effectiveness Center (ALEC), where hourly production-line employees come to actually assemble the prototypes of future products. The 20,000-square-foot facility acts as a simulated assembly environment, and the design-for-manufacturing input it generates from production workers is known as the "voice of the assembler."

ALEC is an important element in the plant's team-based simultaneous engineering (SE) approach that involves all disciplines early in the design and engineering phases of new-product development. These teams are also responsible for the continuous improvement of current products. All of the SE teams include plant representatives, and nearly all include hourly workers. Up-front employee involvement in the development of new car models provides "hundreds of improvement suggestions" and allows Cadillac to bring the voice of the assembler into the product design process over 18 months sooner than in its earlier development methodologies.

GMs Delphi Energy Management Systems plant created its development lab, to evaluate the new manufacturing-process concepts required by the plant.