keep it to yourself!

Have you ever invented something? Have any patents under your belt? I have a feeling you have. Most of us have a few eureka moments in our lives, others blessed with many.

Where do good ideas come from?

Check out this TED talk by Steven Johnson here:


Steven was also featured in the Wall Street Journal, September 25th, in the article, The Genius of the Tinkerer. In a similar tone to his TED talk, he speaks about how to use technology.

Innovation is not about implementing the latest technology, but the appropriate technology.


It's clearly about not keeping it to yourself, right? If you've ever wondered about the validity or complained about preparing for a design review, I hope this makes you think twice.

If brainstorm meetings, product development strategy sessions, or design reviews aren't quite what they used to be in your company, perhaps we should talk over coffee.

us verses them

For as long as I've been in manufacturing, I have been aware of the 'us verses them' phenomenon. I'm talking about the exchange between new product and equipment engineers who create stuff versus the manufacturing engineers who are handed this new stuff and expected to make product.

The 'us' is typically the manufacturing guys who are handed the short stick when the development guys (them) use up all the customer timing and may not finish their work.

The problem arises with expectations I suppose.

The (new product) engineers expect the manufacturing plant to know everything they know * VERSUS * while the manufacturing engineers expect product and equipment to be delivered in working order.

I can see both sides:

New engineers are pushed on timing, timing to their managers or timing to the customer.

Manufacturing engineers are often in charge of multiple pieces of equipment and have less time to work on an incomplete designs.

So, how do we fix?

Meeting expectations is really the solution.

How? (some basic solutions often missed)

FOR THE PRODUCT & EQUIPMENT ENGINEERS

• Finish your work

• Do the high volume product run-offs to uncover (less than complete) equipment

• Find variation and fix it

• Complete documentation (and all 'PSO' materials)

• Create operator instructions specific to your machine/product

• Train the manufacturing crowd on 'how' to run it and how to fix it (note: see above where it shouldn't really need to be fixed at all!)
  

• Hand off all your documentation to help manufacturing stand on their own

FOR THE RECEIVING MANUFACTURING ENGINEERS

• Hold the developers accountable for delivering complete designs

• Be available to learn how to use the new equipment

• Understand basic problem solving and use of basic tools for basic fixes

the process of product development

Good products and great solutions don’t ‘just happen’. The process of product development is just as important as the results.

How is this possible, you might ask?

There is a phrase I use when praising slow food and when talking about product development; here it is: garbage in, garbage out.

It takes specific deliberation to overcome obstacles, create a product that your customer wants, to solve the problems your client didn’t even know existed, to delight your clients into sustained business, and to bring autonomy into your workforce.

I used to have a naysayer on every team I led. You probably have a few yourself... or maybe it's YOU!

I've learned over the years that there is always a solution and with structured deliberation combined with calculations, package studies and even a few prototype tests, one can overcome even the most difficult of challenges.

What are you facing?

Over processed

There is such a thing as being over-processed. You may be experiencing this right now: so many checks and balances that your hands are tied and your projects can’t move forward.

Aren’t checks and balances good?

In efforts to be lean and to minimize defects, some companies have worked very hard implementing special reports, long step by step processes, and multiple authorizations to find themselves spending a lot of time** doing work unrelated to design and producing product.

It is tempting to adopt ready made processes or to copy by benchmarking quality and development processes of sister companies. Supposedly these other companies have error proofed and sweated out the details of their process to be efficient, right?

This is akin to borrowing clothes or buying off the rack. To borrow clothes from an older sister or buy off the rack at the mall will result in pants that need hemming, a fit around the waist that isn’t quite right, perhaps a shirt that is too long or the sleeves too short.

Basically, the clothes don’t fit as they should.

It’s the same with processes in your organization. Buying on-line or one-size-fits-all development systems will likely cause you a lot more grief and aggravation in the long run verses carefully creating processes that work for your team and your product.

**time = money. How are you spending yours?