Who is Bill Gaw?
And why should we
listen to him?
Lean
Enterprise Articles
|
If you're concerned about your
company's future... YOUR FUTURE... . |
Improve
your resume and prepare |
Enterprise Business Model
Part 2 of 3
Lean Manufacturing, Basics, Principles, Techniques
For help in your search
for a new career:
Lean Management Jobs
For my latest Goggle.Knol article:
Click Here
To
review our training
programs, click on
the links below:
Manufacturing Production Process
Operations Supply Chain Management
Other Options:
Production Manufacturing
Thinking Outside
the Box
Performance
Management Process
Performance
Management Training
Lean Manufacturing Implementation
Lean Manufacturing Improvement
Manufacturing Supply Chain Management
Purchasing Supply Chain Management
|
PRODUCT/SERVICE DEVELOPMENT AND PROCESS ENGINEERING The product/service development and process engineering core process provides a focus to develop new products/services that respond to the voice of the customer. The intent of this process is to position the business to respond to changing customer requirements and to anticipate potential customer problems (before they even recognize that they have one) and solve them. Obviously a traditional approach to design, (product definition-design work-redesign) is not effective. There are three rules of effective product development. Changing the business paradigms requires the mastery of these three rules: Know your competitors, know your product development capability, and act precisely and decisively. Knowing your competitors is essential to avoiding the "we know best" syndrome. The tendency is to focus on one business issue at a time. We also tend to seek excellence by searching for "what" and "how" solutions. While "what" and "how" criteria are important, we must also seek the "why" and "when" as well. This requires us to not only understand our own business fundamentals but also the underlying motivations of the obvious performance indices of the competition. This holistic approach can enable us to more accurately compare and effectively apply the best practices of the competition to our new product development process. If you see someone doing something and it works, copy it. If it works very well, copy it quickly. Knowing your product or service development capability is critical to success. You must be honest with yourself. Your customers award their business to you. It is their perceived value of your products or services that either makes or breaks your business. Thus one of your business objectives must be to create a product or service development capability or process that satisfies the greatest number of customers within the dominant strategy. Acting precisely and decisively implies the need to prepare as well as the need to act. A "ready-fire-aim" philosophy seldom breeds success; likewise a "ready-aim-aim-aim-aim-fire" just does not work. The approach that seems to be more common in the successful business is the "ready-aim-fire-fire-fire-fire-fire" philosophy. In other words, do a through job of planning, ensure that the direction is correct, and execute. You can't fix the problem after the fact by throwing more resources into the breach. The classical approach to new product or service development is embedded in the management approach to the business, sequential product design, competitive bidding, multiple suppliers, just in case inventory, functional organization structures, quality through inspection, market research models, engineering designs, hierarchical management, and islands of automation. This mindset embraces a set of paradigms that virtually guarantee that you will continue to do things the same way that you have always done them and most likely achieve the same results so long as the world doesn't move. To break out of the existing new product or service development process requires that you embrace a new set of business paradigms. A process is defined as a bounded group of interrelated work activities providing output of greater value than the inputs; it is essentially a method for doing things. A well-managed business process has the following characteristics: clearly defined ownership, defined boundaries and interfaces, documented work flows, clearly defined control points, established measures, and control over process deviations. The utilization of a process approach to new product or service development is a function of the paradigms of the management of the business. Do they embrace simultaneous/concurrent engineering, supplier partnerships, single souring, Just-in-Time inventories, cross-functional teams, quality at the source, listening to customers' requirements as well as trying to uncover their needs, design for manufacturing as well as assembly, total employee engagement, and flow manufacturing as well as logistics? The process itself will be considerably different depending on the selected business strategy. The time and energy invested in the development of the new product or service can and probably will vary based on the process. A well-designed structured process for new product or service development would consist of the following major elements: concept, concept development, product/service development, full-scale production, and product/service introduction. Each of these elements must be creatively developed to support the dominant strategy selected. In addition, it is necessary to establish criteria to bring closure and agreement to each of these elements as you progress through the process. Managing new product or service development with a process approach is not a revolutionary new concept. Most companies have developed some type of product or service development process. Regardless of their intent, traditional development approaches generally fall within two categories, the first being a formalized, stringent, and very uncompromising technical process that stifles organizational flexibility and creativity. The second is typically so undefined that it results in only "me too" type products if at all. Neither approach fits today's competitive atmosphere. As a result, both of these approaches are more hype than reality. They hinder more than help and seldom fulfill their intended purpose: to channel and facilitate organizational creativity toward satisfying customers needs. The critical nature of this issue cannot be overstated! Each day you perpetuate an ineffective product or service development process, you become less competitive. Customers continue to become more, not less, knowledgeable and sophisticated. In turn, they are demanding a greater, not lesser, array of innovative, complex, and WOW products. Who will meet these challenges? The answer is the most talented, creative, and innovative people and companies. An effective product or service development process must balance and integrate creative people needs with those of effective supporting processes and business strategies. To Be Continued STAY CONNECTED To stay current on Lean Management Basics and Best Practices, subscribe to our weekly MBBP Bulletin... and we'll send you our PowerPoint presentation "How to Survive in an Entirely New Economy." All at no cost of course. Your personal information will never be disclosed to any third party. privacy policy
Here's
what one of our 13,000 plus subscribers "Great manufacturing articles. Thanks for the insights. I often share portions of your articles with my staff and they too enjoy them and fine aspects where they can integrate points into their individual areas of responsibilities. Thanks again." Kerry B. Stephenson. President. KALCO Lighting, LLC "Back to Basics" Training for anyone ... anywhere ... anytime Business
Basics, LLC © 2001-2009 Business Basics, LLC |