CHALLENGE
Help a small electromechanical industrial equipment maker with a stagnant new product pipeline.
DIAGNOSIS
- Evaluation clearly identified the lack of a development process and inconsistent direction for new product development from the executive leadership.
- New design concepts were being drawn in basic CAD tools and being prototyped without any simulation of the fluid dynamics that would evaluate the robustness, quality and reliability of the design.
- The new design prototypes were “thrown over the wall” into full production without any pre-production manufacturing validation runs. This situation was happening DESPITE having a very structured stage gate process.
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS
- Overhaul the entire product development process so that it includes concept development and does not allow exit to the next stage unless all requirements are verifiably met.
- Fluid dynamics modelling software and training for engineers.
- Revamp the product development process to only start prototype fabrication after a design is validated through simulation.
- Update the prototype test methodology to improve coverage of corner cases (cases outside normal parameters), and then use stage-gate process effectively to ensure pre-production runs are planned in and executed before formal production commences.
IMPACT
Company chose not to implement these recommendations due to cost. They still have not launched any new product a year later and have had to cancel two products before launch because they were late to market.
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