4. Article on Benchmarking by Kenneth Crow

7/29/2019 4. Article on Benchmarking by Kenneth Crow

1/17

DISCUSSION PAPER

BENCHMARKING BEST PRACTICES TO IMPROVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

By Kenneth CrowDRM Associates

INTRODUCTION

In this era of "faster, cheaper and better", companies are focusing on improving the productdevelopment process. New business strategies, new organizational approaches, new businessprocesses and new enabling technology are being used by many forward-thinking companies tocontinually improve their product development process. How does a company keep up with these fast-paced changes? Some of the improvement opportunities are obvious to personnel within anorganization. Other opportunities may not be obvious, or there are so many things to do that it becomesa question of where to start. Management will typically have a number of questions on the their minds:How do we compare with the rest of industry? With the best in industry? What are our strengths andweaknesses? Is our development process aligned with our strategic objectives? What improvementsneed to be made? Where do we start? What are our priorities given the resources that we haveavailable? What benefits can we expect? How can we figure this out quickly so that we can get started?

ASSESSMENT

No organization can improve all aspects of product development at once. The implementation of productdevelopment best practices can best be viewed as a journey (continuing process improvement) ratherthan a destination. Priorities need to be developed for implementing the best practices of productdevelopment. The organization must start by understanding what practices should be adopted (what ispossible). Next it must consider its strategic direction (e.g., time-to-market, being the low cost producer,the most innovative producer, the highest quality/reliability producer, flexibility to respond to newproducts and markets) given its market, its objectives, and its competitors. Next, the organization must

assess its strengths and weaknesses. By focusing on the "gap" between where a company is and whereit needs to be, priorities can be set for making improvements. This is represented in below.

Several years ago, we led a consortium to identify product development and time-to-market bestpractices. These practices were derived from: corporate visits, consulting assignments, conferences,workshops and meetings, literature review, telephone discussions, technology vendors, the Navy BestManufacturing Program, the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Models (CMM),the AT&T Handbook series, and other corporate handbooks. These practices are continually being

www.zicon.in Page 1 of17
http://www.zicon.in/http://www.zicon.in/


2/17

updated as new best practices emerge and are identified and as current best practices become standardpractice and are no longer noteworthy.

These practices were organized into a framework with five major dimensions: strategy, organization,process, design optimization and technology and twenty-eight best practice categories (equivalent toProcess Areas in CMM Terminology). In excess of 270 best practices have been identified (seeIntegrated Product Development Body of Knowledge). These are described in a commercially-available

benchmarking tool, the Product Development Best Practices and Assessment (PDBPA) software. Thissoftware tool is used to provide an understanding of these best practices, to enable rapid andinexpensive benchmarking, and to support business process improvement. These best practices areorganized into the following categories for summarization and reporting purposes:

Most of these best practices are universal - they apply to the development of any kind of product in anytype and size of company. Some of these best practices are relevant to only certain types of products orbusiness environments. For example, maintainability/serviceability practices don't apply to consumableproducts, design for manufacturability isn't as important with one-off product such as a satellite, practicesrelated to electrical design or embedded software are not relevant to a purely mechanical product, etc.Therefore, an importance weighting is used to tailor the importance of the best practice to eachcompany's products and business environment.

Associated with each of these best practices is a set of questions to aid in this assessment process. Acompany's product development activities are evaluated with respect to each of these best practices,and a quantitative rating is developed. This evaluation is supported by a verbal description of the

characteristics of the organization's product development approach as it evolves toward a world classapproach to IPD. An example of a worksheet for this evaluation process is as follows:

http://www.npd-solutions.com/bok.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/http://www.npd-solutions.com/bok.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/


3/17

STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT

To be successful, an organization must have a basis for competitive advantage. While an organizationneeds to do a reasonable job in various competitive dimensions, it can not be all things to all people.The enterprise must focus on one or two dimensions of competition to truly excel and be successful. Thefollowing are the competitive dimensions typically associated with product development:

Time-to market

Low development cost

Low cost producer/low cost, high value products

Innovation and product performance Qualities, reliability, ease of use, serviceability, etc.

Agility(responsive, active, quick)

Many best practices are related to one or more of these competitive dimensions or strategies. If thepractice is strongly related to one of these strategies, it can be described as a strategic lever. Forexample, strategic levers related to time-to-market include:



4/17

2.7 Undertake a new development project only when resources are available. Overloadingprojects stretches out projects, delaying time-to-market. Resources can be focused on higherpriority projects underway. The next highest priority project can be undertaken when theresources become available to support it as expeditiously as possible.

5.4 Fully commit to the project and rapidly staff to the plan to get off to a good start.

8.9 Emphasize design re-use of modules, parts, cores, cells, part models, requirementsdocuments, plans, technical documentation, simulation models, fixtures, tooling, etc. to minimizedevelopment cost and schedule.

11.8 Tightly manage requirements to minimize changes that will require redesign cycles.Consider addressing new requirements in the next release or next generation product.

13.4 Get suppliers involved early to collaborate and utilize their ideas and suggestions and todevelop a design that is compatible with their process capabilities.

23.7 Use product data management systems to both control product data and streamline theprocess through workflow capabilities. This speeds and controls the flow of information.

24.4 Use electronic mock-up and assembly modeling capabilities rather than building physicalmock-ups.

25.1 Emphasize early analysis and simulation to minimize build and test cycles with physicalhardware.

By looking at the level of performance related to these strategic levers, a competitive strategy is implied.The question becomes whether this implied strategy is in agreement with the intended strategy.

One way to view the overall implied strategy is to look at the weighted average of the performanceratings for the best practices that are strategic levers associated with each of six competitive dimensionsor strategies. A high weighted average performance rating for a particular strategic dimension comparedwith the weighted average performance ratings in other strategic dimensions suggests that the product

development process has been strategically aligned to that strategic dimension. Ideally, the rankings ofthese weighted average performance ratings should be aligned with the intended strategy priorities. Ifnot, the product development process needs to be improved by applying the best practices that arestrategic levers for the desired strategy.

ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT

In addition to the performance rating against each best practice and for each higher level category, anoverall performance rating is developed by again assigning a weighting factor to each category based ontheir importance given the nature of the business and the product. This performance rating, whencompared to that of other companies, gives an indication of the urgency of improving the developmentprocess.

Gap analysis is then employed to focus attention on the improvement opportunities that will yield thehighest payoff. The categories with high weighting factors (indicating their importance to your productdevelopment success) and relatively low performance ratings yield the largest gaps between what isimportant to the organization and what it does well. These are the areas that require the highest priorityin improving the development process and will likely have the largest payoff. On the other hand,categories with low importance ratings and relatively high performance ratings indicate low priority areasnot deserving as much attention.



5/17

The strategic alignment analysis and gap analysis become the basis for identifying implementationactions and priorities. The concept is to pick a manageable number of improvement initiatives to focusyour attention on.

Once the large gap categories are identified, an examination of the individual best practices with lowerperformance ratings will help identify the specific areas that require attention. In addition, identify andfocus on the strategic levers that have low performance ratings and that are associated with the

organization's intended strategy. Therefore, as a prerequisite, executive management must define avision for product development and determine the competitive strategy as a basis for aligning productdevelopment practices and developing implementation priorities. This analysis becomes the basis fordeveloping priorities and, eventually, an improvement or implementation plan.

In addition, the expertise of an internal manager or outside consultant very knowledgeable in integratedproduct development concepts and improvement strategies can aid in identifying priorities. Thisexpertise is important because of natural relationships and sequences with the implementation and useof these best practices. For example, moving to a digital product model as a replacement for paperdrawings is not realistic until there is a certain level of CAD capability, workstation access to the model,product data management system, and network infrastructure in place. Experience and good projectplanning is needed to translate these high priority improvement needs into specific actions,responsibilities, schedules and assignments.

Personnel resources to support implementation or improvement activities are required. If the overallperformance rating is low, a critical mass of personnel within the organization needs to develop anunderstanding of the concepts of IPD. These people can then refine the implementation plan, performvarious implementation activities, be involved in defining the desired way to develop new products basedon IPD approaches, and assist in communicating the desired approach to the rest of the organization.

The implementation plan should begin with the low cost activities that yield high payoffs. In the absenceof any other indications of strengths and weaknesses, we believe these initial actions should includeforming product development teams as the basis for product development, establishing effectiveproduct/project planning and resource management, and utilizing the quality function deployment (QFD)methodology as a method for capturing and understanding the voice of the customer. As these stepsbegin to generate savings, the organization can move on to other IPD elements and self-fund the

initiative.

There are two elements of implementation planning that must be addressed. The first one that has beendescribed is the implementation plan for the enterprise activities. It covers all the activities to create theIPD environment for all development projects the activities that cannot cost effectively be done by anindividual development project. This would include defining a streamlined product development process,developing manufacturability guidelines, installing appropriate CAD/CAE/CAM and product datamanagement system tools, etc.

The second plan element, the project deployment plan, the IPD actions that will be taken to support anindividual product development project. This plan would be developed with the participation of themember of management responsible for the development effort, e.g., engineering manager, programmanager, product line manager, etc. This plan would address the team structure required to support the

project, a staffing plan supporting early involvement, the training requirements, facilities and collocationimplications, the technical resources required (workstations, software, etc.), the use of techniques suchas quality function deployment, supplier/subcontractor involvement, the development methodology,establishment of project policies and strategies, etc.

SUMMARY

Many organizations take totally different directions in the evolution of their product development process.While some of these differences are the result of legitimate differences in their business strategy,business environment, organization, and the nature of their products, a frequent problem is the lack of a



6/17

common framework of the best practices of product development. With extensive investment of time, anorganization could develop the broad, internal expertise necessary to produce an effective improvementplan for product development. This would require significant training, attendance at conferences, andextensive benchmarking. This structured Product Development Best Practices and Assessmentmethodology based on these 270 best practices of product development provides an inexpensivealternative to identifying strengths and weaknesses relative to a common framework of an extensive setof best practices. This enables an organization to more quickly develop an action plan for improving the

development process

DRM Associates developed this assessment methodology and led the consortium that identified thesebest practices. The best practices resulted from numerous company visits and attendance at over 100conferences and workshops on integrated product development. For further information on the ProductDevelopment Assessment and our Product Development Best Practices and Assessment Software,contact Kenneth Crow.

BENCHMARKING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Many companies develop an inward focus (that is, "not invented here", "we've always done it this way",etc.) that limits their opportunities to improve. Benchmarking is a technique to measure an organizationagainst other organizations and identify opportunities and approaches to improve. David Kearns, the

Chief Executive Officer of the Xerox Corporation, states that "Benchmarking is the continuous process ofmeasuring products, services, and practices against the toughest competitors or those recognized asindustry leaders."

Benchmarking relates to product development by providing an external perspective on opportunities toimprove products, technology, manufacturing and support processes, the product development process,and engineering practices. The starting point is to develop a willingness to scrutinize an organizationoperations and products and be willing to compare them with other organizations without beingdefensive. This straight-forward methodology consists of the following steps:

Plan what to benchmark

Understand the internal processes

Determine companies to evaluate(both Products and Processes) Gather and analyze external data

Identify performance gaps and reasons

Communicate and gain concurrence

Develop an action plan

Implement improvements and monitor

The external information gathering phase has been approached in a variety of ways: productexamination/reverse engineering to understand technology and manufacturing processes, in-depthassessment of a single benchmark partner, less in-depth data gathering/surveys of a larger number ofpartners.

These comparative evaluations are not necessarily made with an organization in the company's same

industry segment, but with an organization that performs a similar function. Benchmarking involvesidentifying relative performance differences and gaining an understanding of the reasons that contributeto a higher level of comparative performance. Once this understanding has been obtained, theorganization needs to translate it into appropriate actions to improve its own performance. Anorganization does not necessarily want to copy approaches taken by other organizations, because theymay not be appropriate for its business environment, products, market, or culture.

http://www.npd-solutions.com/pda.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pda.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/mail%20to:/[email protected]://www.zicon.in/http://www.npd-solutions.com/pda.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pda.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/mail%20to:/[email protected]://www.zicon.in/


7/17

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT

DRM Associate's Product Development Assessment (PDA) methodology is used benchmark and assessyour organization's development process against 260 best practices for product development. Thisassessment serves as a benchmark and identifies the highest impact opportunities for furtherimprovement. This overall methodology is described in Benchmarking Best Practices to Improve ProductDevelopment. The assessment would typically take one to three weeks depending upon the

organization's size and the complexity of the development process. Prior to conducting the assessment,we would review your organization chart and any other descriptive material you provide and discussyour product development environment by phone. Based on this, we would typically conduct four to tendays of interviews, walk-through's, and process reviews. Twenty-eight product development dimensionsare addressed:

Business and Product Strategy

Product and Pipeline Management

Technology Management

Management and Leadership

Early Involvement

Product Development Teams

Organizational Environment

Process Management

Process Improvement

Understanding the Customer

Requirements and Specifications Management

Development Process Integration

Supplier/Subcontractor Integration

Product Launch

Configuration Management

Design Assurance

Project & Resource Management

Design for Manufacturability

Product Cost Management Robust Design

Integrated Test Design and Program

Design for Operation and Support

Product Data

Design Automation

Simulation and Analysis

Computer-Aided Manufacturing

Support Technology

Knowledge Management

At the conclusion of this review, we will sit down with you and other members of your management teamto offer specific recommendations as well as debrief you using our assessment forms. Where necessary,we would explain certain IPD concepts to your management team so that they would understand why arecommended improvement was appropriate. We can discuss priorities based on gap analysis (weakrating versus a strong importance of the dimension), dimensions that seem out of balance, and ourexperience. We can then help develop a preliminary action plan to "close the gap" and improve in areasrelated to the company's critical success factors. We will leave a copy of our Product Development BestPractices and Assessment software with you so that you can perform on-going self-assessments in thefuture. Training in this benchmarking and assessment methodology is also available.

This feedback can identify specific opportunities to improve the product development process and can

http://www.npd-solutions.com/index.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/benchmarking.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/benchmarking.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/assessws.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/http://www.npd-solutions.com/index.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/benchmarking.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/benchmarking.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/assessws.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/


8/17

result in significant reductions in development/modification costs, product costs, and engineeringchanges as well as improved product quality and time-to-market. This assessment and the subsequentimprovement efforts can pay for themselves many times over.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT BEST PRACTICES AND ASSESSMENT

Product Development Best Practices and Assessment (PDBPA) software describes 270 best practices

identified from researching and examining many companies' product development practices from aroundthe world.

The PDBPA provides a structured benchmarking and assessment methodology for the productdevelopment process based on these best practices. While our experienced consultants have used andrefined this assessment methodology for the last seven years (see Product Development Assessmentservices), we have now developed a software-based self-assessment that describes these bestpractices and guides company personnel through the assessment process. This provides an extremelycost-effective way to benchmark and improve product development performance. (see Benchmarking

Best Practices to Improve Product Development) A companion product, the IPPD Best Practices andAssessment software, provides an assessment tool for an individual program developed under contractwhereas the PDBPA provides an overall enterprise assessment. This assessment and improvementprocess is represented below.

http://www.npd-solutions.com/pda.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/benchmarking.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/benchmarking.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/ippdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/ippdbpa.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/http://www.npd-solutions.com/pda.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/benchmarking.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/benchmarking.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/ippdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/ippdbpa.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/


9/17

These best practices have been organized into twenty-eight categories covering strategy, organization,process, design optimization and technology.

In addition to describing the best practices, the assessment methodology contains questions to helpprobe at the use of these practices within a company (see Assessment Worksheet Example), anevaluation scale, and a weighting factor and performance rating. Performance is summarized to the

http://www.npd-solutions.com/worksheet.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/http://www.npd-solutions.com/worksheet.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/


10/17

category level, and, when compared to that of other companies, gives an indication of the urgency ofimproving the development process. Gap analysis (see Gap Analysis Example) is then employed tofocus attention on the improvement opportunities that will yield the highest payoff.

The software also relates the product development practices to six possible product developmentstrategic orientations:

Time-to-market (development schedule)

Development cost

Low product cost

High product innovation and performance

Quality, reliability and dependability (robustness)

Service, responsiveness & flexibility to respond to new product opportunities & markets

Based on performance in the various related practices, the software assesses how well the developmentprocess is aligned to and supports the desired strategic orientation.

CHARACTERIZING AND IMPROVING THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Over the last decade, businesses have focused attention on documenting, improving and evenreengineering business and manufacturing processes. Focusing this type of attention on repetitive, high-volume business and manufacturing processes provides a great deal of leverage from any improvementefforts. New product development (NPD) is often one of the least repetitive, lowest-volume processes inmost companies or business units. The typical frequency of performing this process ranges from one to100 projects per year in the vast majority of companies or business units. As a result, managementfrequently looks at NPD as 1.) more of an art than a defined business process, 2.) involving highly-paidknowledge workers who don't need a well-defined business process, and/or 3.) not as worthy of theeffort to characterize and improve as are other business processes.

In addition, the typical duration of NPD projects ranges from six months to six years. As a result,development personnel don't have the opportunity to learn from and to refine the development processthrough repeated use on an individual basis. With the rapid pace of technology evolution, the hiring ofmany young engineers in some industries, high turn-over rates, it is not unusual to see developmentpersonnel with keys roles in a development project, but who have not gone through a full developmentcycle on a prior project within their companies. In short, many development personnel have littleunderstanding of or practical experience with any standard NPD process in their companies.

Contrary to this situation, the development process is critical to achieving time-to-market, developmentcost and risk, and the product's cost, quality, and performance on a consistent basis. The CapabilityMaturity Model describes five stages of evolution or levels of capability or process maturity. This servesas a framework for discussing requirements for the NPD process. The first stage, ad-hoc, represents theconditions described above.

The process must be characterized and documented. Unless it is, it will be difficult to assureunderstanding and agreement on what the process in fact is, difficult for all development personnel tounderstand the process in a consistent manner, and difficult to communicate that process to newpersonnel. We have found the following to be useful elements for completely characterizing anddocumenting an NPD development process:

Process flow diagram

Process step description including required inputs, required outputs, responsibilities, and

supporting tools

Description of each process step output, minimum standards related to that output, or a good

example of the process output

http://www.npd-solutions.com/gap_analysis.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/cmm.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/cmm.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/http://www.npd-solutions.com/gap_analysis.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/cmm.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/cmm.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/


11/17

Roles and responsibilities for performing each process step or producing each process step

output

Description of each design review and gate review including participants, required information

(process step outputs), and agenda

Criteria for prototype product builds

The process must be repeatable. If the process is characterized and documented, it must then be 1.)effectively communicated to development personnel for them to understand and 2.) an emphasis placedon consistent use of the defined process. The advantages of having a repeatable process must becommunicated. It is easier to plan and initiate a new project because development personnel understandwhat must be done and how to go about it. A common process provides greater personnel flexibility andfacilitates moving people into and out of a project as the need arises. It increases personnel's overallunderstanding of a project, the requirements they must meet and their interfaces with other developmentpersonnel.

The process must be flexible to tailor to the needs of different type of development projects. The processsteps and outputs (as well as the cost, schedule and risk) of developing a totally new product with newprocesses and new markets should be more extensive than the process steps and outputs for a productupgrade or enhancement. These differences need to be understood and an approach established toallow tailoring of the standard NPD process to the needs of a development program.

The process must be managed. There are two aspects to "being managed". First, the developmentprocess is monitored to assure an adequate level of performance through establishment of appropriateproduct development metrics. Second, there are appropriate management controls in place to helpassure the desired results. These controls are in the form of design reviews and stage-gate reviews.Design reviews focus on addressing the technical requirements of the development program and thestage-gate reviews focus on addressing the business requirements. These reviews need to be balancedwith empowering the teams and preventing delays in the development process (e.g., "hard" vs. "soft"gates).

While product development may not be a highly repetitive process, the investment in characterizing,improving and managing this process is significant because of the leverage that new productdevelopment has on the enterprise and its profitability.

The key points for managing the NPD process is as follows

New products are developed using processes that are explicitly documented.

Development personnel understand and follow the NPD process

Improving the NPD process is the responsibility of management as well as all product teams.

Improvement of the NPD process occurs through accumulation and analysis of "Lessons

Learned".

Development process outcomes agree well with predicted expectations and results are

repeatable.

The development process addresses the complete product life cycle.

Process metrics are aligned with management goals for the NPD process.

Development process metrics are quantitative.

PROCESS FLOW DIAGRAM EXAMPLE

http://www.npd-solutions.com/pdmetrics.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/http://www.npd-solutions.com/pdmetrics.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/


12/17

PROCESS DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE

8. Develop Product Concept

Based on the product requirements and specifications, multiple product concepts are developed that canpotentially satisfy those requirements. Brainstorming and other creativity techniques are used togenerate a range of concept alternatives. These concepts are analyzed with respect to the productrequirements as well as the existing technology portfolio, company capabilities, and business strategy in

order to select the most promising architecture. The architecture is refined and the best aspects of otherconcepts are synthesized into the concept.

Tasks

1. Brainstorm and develop top-level product or system concepts to satisfy product requirements.2. Analyze, evaluate and select a preferred product concept considering product requirements,

company technology and capabilities, development risks, and business strategy.3. Partition the system into subsystems or modules (and derive subsystem requirements4. Brainstorm and develop subsystem concepts to satisfy lower-level requirements.5. Analyze, evaluate and select subsystem concepts considering requirements, company

technology and capabilities, development risks, and business strategy.6. Identify need for risk-reduction development or investigation and launch effort.7. Document the concept.

Inputs

1. Product requirements document

Outputs/Deliverables

1. Product concept block diagram2. Layout drawing3. Concept selection matrix

Personnel Involved

1. Marketing2. Project Manager3. Design Engineers4. Manufacturing Engineer5. Test Engineer6. Supply Management



13/17

PROCESS OUTPUT RESPONSIBILITY MATRIX EXAMPLE

Example of Phase-Gate Review Definition

Meeting TitleProgram ApprovalMeeting

Design Approval Meeting Pilot Approval Meeting

TimingPrior to the Feasibility &Concept Phase

At the end of Feasibility& Concept Phase

At the end of thePrototype Phase

Stage ApprovedThe Program and theFeasibility & ConceptPhase

Design Phase Pilot Phase

Entry Criteria orPrerequisites

Project DefinitionSuccessful ConceptDesign Review

Successful Final DesignReview

Meeting RequiredBefore:

Resources can beapplied to program

Quote Delivered to theCustomer and DesignPhase can begin

Pilot Phase can beginand production toolingordered

Agenda Program overview

Basic customerrequirements

Key program milestone

System architecture

Degree of new invention& technical development

Final Design Reviewissues and proposedresolution

Customer satisfaction &



14/17

dates

Product and tooling costtargets

Quality targets

Program risk issues

Proposed NPD processdeviations

Manufacturing sourcing

Concept Design Reviewissues & proposedresolution

Cost targets vs.estimates

Internal quality targets

Program budget &preliminary investmentrequirements

Program breakeven time

Proposed customerquotation

Updated programschedule

Program staffing issues

Program risk issues

NPD process deviations

issues

Cost targets vs.estimates

Program budget

Tooling & equipmentinvestment and budgetapproval

Program breakeven time

Updated programschedule and status

Program risk issues

NPD process deviations

Product Build Criteria Example

Build Criteria P0 Build P1 Build P2 Build

Development Phase 2 3 4

Prerequisites Preliminary design review Released drawings Production readinessreview

Typical build quantity 2 10 20

Nature of parts Functionally similar (e.g.,surrogate parts, rapidprototype parts, FPGA vs.

ASIC)

Design intent per drawing(meet functional & physicalrequirements)

Production parts fromintended suppliersproduction process

Supplier Used Any (prototype house or actual supplier)

Actual supplier Actual supplier

Supplier productionprocess

Non-production orproduction process/line

Non-production orproduction process/line

Intended productionprocess & line

Production Location Lab Pilot or low-volume line inProduction

Intended production line

Tooling, fixtures & testsoftware

None Prototype/low-volumetooling, fixtures & SW

Final/production-readytooling, fixtures & SW

Qualification Test/ Functional only All - functional, reliability & All - functional, reliability &



15/17

Verification environmental environmental

Verification subject Product Product & process Process

NPD PROCESS TOOLS

There are two classes of tools to support product development: design tools and management tools as

shown in the following diagram.

A lot of attention has been given to the design tools over the last two decades. Management tools havereceived less attention. Project management tools have the longest tradition of use. Product DataManagement (also known as Product Information Management and Collaborative Product Commerce)tools have been on the scene since the late 80's. Requirements Management tools are lesser knowntools used to manage the requirements and specifications associated with complex products. Morerecently, a new class of tools has emerged to support managing the NPD process and serving as arepository for other documents that are not typically managed by a Product Data Management system.

Therefore, there are three primary tools that most companies wanting to achieve a mature and well-managed process and data will put in place. These tools, shown below, overlap each other to a degreeand will have logical interfaces.

While the functions of project management and product data management systems are well-known,NPD process management tools are new to many people. These NPD process management tools

typically provide the following functions:

Plan and manage a project portfolio

Support pipeline management with resource planning and analysis of pipeline flow

Document the NPD process in the form of stages/phases, gates, process flows, activities,

deliverables, and responsibilities

Provide templates for deliverable documents

Provide process flexibility by allowing for selection of the product development process to be

used on a project



16/17

Support a phase-gate process with tracking phases and gate progress and distributing gate

review documents to reviewers for approval

Serve as a repository for business documents/deliverables (as opposed to product data which is

best managed with a product data management system)

Share project documents across the enterprise to team members and other authorized

personnel

Provide access control to documents and files

Provide a collaboration platform for documents, activities and threaded discussions

Track status of projects and deliverables against the defined process

Coordinate process management with project management - project management schedules

and responsibilities can be interfaced with process activities and deliverables

Process activity and deliverable status can be shared with project management systems

Provide monitoring and an overall summary of projects and their status

The objective of these tools is to:

Assure adherence to the process

Facilitate use of the process

Facilitate planning

Manage information/data/documents

Facilitate communication

Collect information on the status of the project relative to the process

Communicate upcoming process requirements, planned activities and status

Measure project performance

The Capability Maturity Model describes the stages of evolution in a process such as productdevelopment ranging from an ad-hoc and immature state to an optimized state. As companies strive todevelop a more mature process, these tools can facilitate the objective of repeatability managed. This isrequired before the process can be optimized.

PD-Trak is an example of a low-cost, commercially-available NPD Process Management, PortfolioManagement, and Pipeline Management tool.

CAPABILITY MATURITY MODEL

The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) was developed by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University to describe a framework of five stages of evolution or levels of capability or processmaturity. The CMM describes an evolutionary improvement path from an ad-hoc, immature process to amature, disciplined process. This model applies to new product development as well as softwaredevelopment. While the CMM provides a model for process maturity, the Product Development BestPractices and Assessment software and the Product Development Assessment methodology provide amore comprehensive and sound framework for assessing and improving product development. TheCMM model has been adapted by DRM Associates to describe the levels of maturity with the productdevelopment process. The five product development process CMM levels are:

1. Initial Level (ad-hoc, immature): At the initial level, the organization typically does not provide astable environment for developing new products. When a organization lacks sound managementpractices, the benefits of good integrated product development practices are undermined byineffective planning, reaction-driven commitment systems. process short-cuts and theirassociated risks, late involvement of key disciplines, and little focus on optimizing the product forits life cycle. The development process is unpredictable and unstable because the process isconstantly changed or modified as the work progresses opr varies from one project to another.

http://www.npd-solutions.com/cmm.htmlhttp://www.pd-trak.com/http://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pda.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/http://www.npd-solutions.com/cmm.htmlhttp://www.pd-trak.com/http://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pdbpa.htmlhttp://www.npd-solutions.com/pda.htmlhttp://www.zicon.in/


17/17

Performance depends on the capabilities of individuals or teams and varies with their innateskills, knowledge, and motivations.

2. Repeatable Level: At the repeatable level, policies for managing a development project andprocedures to implement those policies are established. Effective management processes fordevelopment projects are institutionalized, which allow organizations to repeat successfulpractices developed on earlier projects, although the specific processes implemented by theprojects may differ. An effective process can be characterized as practiced, documented,

enforced, trained, measured, and able to improve. Basic project and management controls havebeen installed. Realistic project commitments are based on the results observed on previousprojects and on the requirements of the current project. The project managers and team leaderstrack NPD costs, schedules, and requirements; problems in meeting commitments are identifiedwhen they arise. Product requirements and design documentation are controlled to preventunauthorized changes. The team works with its subcontractors, if any, to establish a strongcustomer-supplier relationship.

3. Defined Level: At the defined level, the standard process for developing new products isdocumented, these processes are based on integrated product development practices, andthese processes are integrated into a coherent whole. Processes are used to help themanagers, team leaders, and development team members perform more effectively. Anorganization-wide training program is implemented to ensure that the staff and managers havethe knowledge and skills required to fulfill their assigned roles. Projects tailor the organization'sbaseline development process to develop their tailored process which accounts for the uniquecharacteristics of the project. A well-defined process can be characterized as includingreadiness criteria, inputs, standards and procedures for performing the work, verificationmechanisms (such as team reviews), outputs, and completion criteria. Roles and responsibilitiesare clearly defined and understood. Because the software process is well defined, managementhas good insight into technical progress on all projects. Project cost, schedule, and requirementsare under control, and product quality is tracked.

4. Managed Level: At the managed level, the organization establishes metrics for products andprocesses and measures results. Projects achieve control over their products and processes bynarrowing the variation in their process performance to fall within acceptable boundaries.Meaningful variations in process performance can be distinguished from random variation(noise). The risks involved in moving new product technology, manufacturing processes andmarkets are known and carefully managed. The development process is predictable becausethe process is measured and operates within measurable limits. This level of process capability

allows an organization to predict trends in process and product quality within the quantitativebounds of these limits. When these limits are exceeded, action is taken to correct the situation.

As a result, products are of predictably high quality.5. Optimized Level: At the optimized level, the entire organization is focused on continuous

process improvement. The organization has the means to identify weaknesses and strengthenthe process proactively, with the goal of preventing the occurrence of defects. Data on theeffectiveness of the development process is used to perform cost benefit analyses of newdevelopment technologies and proposed changes to the organization's development process.Innovations that exploit the best integrated product development practices are identified andtransferred throughout the organization. Product development teams analyze failures anddefects to determine their causes. Development processes are evaluated to prevent knowntypes of failures and defects from recurring, and lessons learned are disseminated to otherprojects. Improvement occurs because of both incremental advances in the existing process and

by innovations using new technologies and methods.

www zicon in Page 17 of 17

4. Article on Benchmarking by Kenneth Crow

Documents

Transcript of 4. Article on Benchmarking by Kenneth Crow