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?

Build it wrong

Have you ever launched a production line only to start making bad parts instantly?

Have you ever launched a production line with a horrible PPM ranking after weeks of meticulous planning?




Product development is complex and demands a process of it’s own to ensure critical elements are considered and implemented. I could –and others have written, volumes on this topic, but today I want to focus and share a tried and true method of bullet-proofing your manufacturing line.


There is actually a trick.

Sure..

• You think you know how to assemble that part.
• You think you’re a good communicator and trainer to teach others how to put it together.
• You think you’ve balanced the line such that every person is done with their assigned tasks in 12 seconds.

You think.

Before you’re finished with designing fixtures and equipment for the production line and certainly well before you even consider a run at rate evaluation, host a ‘build it wrong’ day.

That’s right. Dare your team* to build the part wrong.

HOW TO:
*Collect a diverse group consisting of engineers, managers, team leaders, operators, and maybe even your staff assistant and assign them a ‘station’. At each 'station', provide them all the parts they'd need at that defined ‘station’ along with a few tools both necessary and completely useless, then tell them to put it together.

ie: say: "put this together", and walk away.

That’s right, provide no other instruction, no other words.

In addition, create a special ‘station’ where you have all the parts for the assembly and have someone try to assemble the whole thing by themselves (again without any instruction what so ever).


WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER:
• Poke Yokes you’ll need to create; both design and process

• Operator instruction noteables

• Product design changes necessary to eliminate possible mis-builds

• Process steps needed

• Special tools required

• Ergonomic changes to the station including fixtures and tools necessary


THE BIGGEST LESSON?

You’ll discover what you don’t yet know.

Minus One

I threw a big party recently and had a sizable committee to help me execute the event as well as a few new and good friends to help me during the night of. I am very grateful for all their support as without each of them, the event would have been different.

Different bad? Different good?

Each friend brought their own unique ideas, bubbling personalities, and quirky humor. I tentatively assigned tasks to each based on their requests or for what I thought they might enjoy and be good at.

Of course like anything, things change, and new challenges arise requiring fast flexibility and initiation by each of us.

One of the women approached me after the party and started to almost apologize as she thought her presence wasn’t really needed that night. “I feel like I didn’t do very much, you really didn’t need me,” she said.

Au contraire!

Without her, I would have been nervous that I was one person short. Without her, I wouldn’t have had anyone to help the others when it became obvious that more hands were needed for the auction support.

While a party is a very different animal than a production line, producing a product and executing a seamless evening is quite similar mechanically.

PRODUCTION

Work flow and balance are equally important in both circumstances. Persons should be assigned tasks that keep each similarly and equally busy but along with flexibility to increase output –or temporarily lend a hand to someone else, without the process being interrupted.

In this design, there are many positive outcomes:

• 1) each person is not working at their maximum, thus energy is conserved,
  

• 2) should a customer request extra pieces, a slight speeding of the line is possible, and
  

• 3) should someone be absent, each person can absorb a little bit extra work to maintain balance and output.

PERSONALLY

My humble friend from the party forgot one thing about the importance of her presence.

By ‘showing up’, she was demonstrating her support to me that couldn’t be illustrated in any other way.

At work, we also demonstrate our commitment to the company and our colleagues by ‘showing up’. Sure, they could sustain themselves here and there without us, but by consistently showing up and doing what we commit to do; we honor our fellow workers and bring about better morale.