How 2 - Innovation
Answering customer questions is Mark Stone, Lead Practitioner for the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) North West innovation team. Before joining MAS, which is based at The Manufacturing Institute, he was a design for manufacture specialist at Toyota, Vauxhall and JCB.
How can we deliver speedy and profitable new product development?
Firstly, identify the needs of your customers. Profitability depends on creating products to meet these needs quickly and at the right cost. Creation of ideas will be inspired by customer pull, technology push, or other market conditions such as competitor actions.
Have a structured and managed product development process, and get the relevant people involved. So many companies design products in an un-coordinated manner and in pockets of isolation that it’s not surprising they either fail to get to market or don’t generate profits.
A typical product development process would have a concept development phase and a simultaneous product and process design phase; then move on to product and process validation and then into manufacture. A project leader managing this process should ensure activities stay on plan, prevent overruns on cost and timing, and ensure that the design team sticks to its brief.
Learning points need to be captured during the process, and acted upon to continuously improve the product development process. Standardise and then improve - product development is a live process.
What steps should we take to get the whole business working together to ensure that design is optimised for manufacture?
Many companies still use a sequential approach to product development, with the manufacturing function typically the last step. By the time the manufacturing engineer ‘receives the ball’, the project can be behind on timing or behind on cost, leaving little scope to change anything. The end result is usually a non-capable manufacturing process and higher costs.
In order to optimise design for manufacture, develop the products and processes through cross-functional teams, having a core team containing representatives from design, manufacturing and commercial functions, with occasional use of customer and supplier resources.
A technique the team should use is design for manufacture/assembly (DFMA). This structured approach has manufacturing cost at its heart. It should begin at concept development, and continue through to product and process validation. Since a lot of the product cost is fixed at the design stage, DFMA is a must for effective optimisation.
How can we improve our profit margin on existing products without compromising product quality?
Today, the market place determines the selling price. So to increase profits a manufacturer needs to reduce their cost price.
One very effective way of doing this is through the adoption of lean manufacturing principles. Making only what the customer wants, and only when they want it, will strip surplus costs out of a manufacturing process.
Extending your thinking to considering the product design will open up a rich seam of additional cost out opportunities. We recommend the value analysis approach to taking cost out of existing products. Value analysis focuses on functionality, and how to achieve it at the lowest possible cost. Savings vary by industry and product, but can be as high as 25 per cent.
How do we manage the regulatory burden and associated costs in bringing a new product to market?
Regulatory requirements vary from industry to industry, and represent a cost that has to be borne by the manufacturer. You need to incorporate these requirements into the design specification. Overlooking a regulatory requirement at the concept development phase can have serious financial and lead-time implications on the product development process.
Losing sight of the product specifications is another trap that companies often fall into. They start off with a clear specification, but without a managed and structured approach to product development, end up going off at a tangent, and develop a product not consistent with the original specification.
One approach to minimising regulatory costs is to develop a common platform product, which satisfies the regulations of a particular marketplace. This platform can then be used to develop product derivatives, to satisfy specific opportunities. The additional regulatory approvals on these derivatives will be a fraction of the costs associated with one-off products.
