Tag Archives | Lean Engineering in Lean Six Sigma

Lean Product Development

By René Visser on April 19, 2012 in Information Technology, Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

People & Partners

– Chief Engineer Role in Development phase (misunderstood in Aerospace Industry)

§ Highly experienced in Product development, small team, clear technical authority over all internal & external Eng’s, Voice of the Customer, guardian of the specifications, not a Programme Manager. Unity of leadership

§ Decide Product & trade off between design/ Manufacturing/ Suppliers & Customer Support/ ILS so that product fulfils all requirements

§ Identify & remove Development roadblocks internal & partners/suppliers

§ Dev. schedule, product recurring costs, product reliability & op costs,

– Balance functional expertise & Programme integration

§ Programme Plateau (early concept phase & integration tasks) or Functional Plateau
(Detail design phase, cross programme optimization & learning, standardization, product/process skills)

– Develop towering technical competence

§ Proactive hiring, early experience in other functions: Manufacturing, Customer and Support/

§ Link to HR (Expert network, competence Mgt, specific technology dev. skills, process)

– Suppliers/Partners integration into Product Development

– Build in learning & Continuous Improvement

§ Companys’ culture are mainly based on history & diff. functions (customer value,
multicultural…)

– Build a culture to support Excellence & Relentless Improvement

Why Lean Development ?

By René Visser on April 9, 2012 in Information Technology, Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

Improving your service and manufacturing systems can only give you limited gains – this is only half the opportunity
There is more scope of improvement opportunities if you target the engineering of your service, products and process’
It can be more challenging as it is not as easy to see waste and flow
Many organisations have implemented lean and explored opportunities in all departments (design, purchasing, engineering, finance, HR etc)
They feel that this is what gives them an edge over their competitors
Assist in achieving swifter new products development

E.g., Toyota, Ford, Nokia and others,

We understand that we are not Toyota !!!! However, it is important to understand some of the main differences between the Toyota culture and conventional business cultures when they develop new products as it will help you see where we can make changes to grow stronger as a company. Also, it will enable you to understand where development systems have originated from.

Lean Engineering in Lean Six Sigma

By René Visser on April 8, 2012 in Information Technology, Lean Six Sigma, Uncategorized

Lean Six Sigma challenges for Service and Product Development are

Short life cycles for service offerings, products and technologies
Integrated development and quality approach with suppliers
Customer expectations becoming more demanding
Technology (hard/software) becoming increasingly complex
Extremely high requirements for service and manufacturability
High impact of poor OTOQOC performance on confidence
High costs of development of complex services and products
High cost of post design changes, amendments & failures

Short life cycles for both products and technologies.

[Comment: This requires dynamic changes in product designs be managed at the sub-assembly level and coordinated across product lines to gain the most synergy for our development efforts.]

Customers have rising expectations for quality of total service [Comment: Customers don’t care if the problem is a handset or service provider.]

Increasing number of product development projects.

[Comment: Nokia has chosen to compete in all technology areas. Since technology has not yet consolidated around one or two standards, we face the need to innovate and refresh all product lines on a regular basis. Most of our competitors are not attempting this same approach.]

Products must be capable of manufacture in the millions.

[Comment: Mistakes cannot be made in production, right the first time is essential or we will not effectively compete in this business.]

Reliance on component parts quality from suppliers.

[Comment: We do not control our own destiny for quality but must seek exceptional partners who can contribute to our overall effort on behalf of our customers.]

Software is complex and interoperability is essential & interoperability is essential.

[Comment: Again, “right the first time” is the rule for software as well as hardware. We also rely heavily on standards and industry partnerships to assure that we maintain seamless integration between hardware manufacturers and service providers.]