TABLE OF CONTENTS Part Four describes three areas that facilitate additional improvement in the product development process: selecting the appropriate design strategy, developing software tools, and integrating the supply chain.
Chapter 7 expounded on the issues resulting from excessive product variation. However, in addition to product variation, another key contributor to high product cost and poor design quality is excessive process variation. Unnecessary process variation promotes waste in the product development process. Examples of this include:
Designing a new part when an equivalent one already exists
Using multiple methods for performing standard engineering analysis
Recreating product data
However, it is important to note that these statements do not advocate a one-size-fits-all approach to product development. By their very nature, products possess different characteristics, which influence how individual parts within a product function and relate to one another, how the product is assembled, and, ultimately, how the product is designed. As a result, companies need to be flexible and select a design approach that most closely aligns with the characteristics of the product, so that the company can maximize profitability and customer value. Companies that have integrated their design process with the lean fundamentals and guiding principles (presented in Chapters 2 and 3) have achieved dramatic results. These results include:
70 percent reduction in product development cycle time
50 percent reduction in product cost
5 sigma...
