Archive for April 2022
Ensuring Linkage Between Requirements and Verification
One of several reasons for emphasizing product requirements includes enabling modeling and simulations of designs, as well as ensuring adequate verification and validation testing. Recall the fundamental framing of a requirement as: Note the framing (within the requirement) of a mathematical and/or experimental relationship where “Y” is the output as a function of “(x)” as…
Read MoreWhat is Lean Product Development (Part I)?
Lean product development might mean different things to different organizations, but let’s start with the 5 principles of lean manufacturing and see how it can be applied to the product development process. Manufacturing Value Stream 1. Specify value 2. Identify the value stream 3. Establish flow 4. Make value flow at the pull of the customer…
Read MoreWhat is Lean Product Development? (Part II)
In my last article the high level goal of lean product development was established as follows: Develop products that maximize customer value and minimize product cost, in the least amount of time, and at the least amount of product development cost. Let’s analyze this goal statement and establish some high-level objectives. Customer Value – understand customer value, and…
Read MoreWhat is Lean Product Development (Part III)
In my previous article, we established some high-level objectives for lean product development as follows: These might be considered “enterprise” level objectives…some or all of the objectives might be part of a product development organizational strategy depending on it’s size or number of product development projects. Some tools and methodologies that enable lean product development include:…
Read MoreA Scalable Model for Lean Product Development
In my previous article we established the lean product development goal statement as: Develop products that maximize customer value and minimize product cost, in the least amount of time, and at the least amount of product development cost. We then derived high-level objectives as follows: These might be considered “enterprise” level objectives…some or all of the objectives might…
Read MoreLean Project Management for Product Development
My last article covered a scalable model for lean product development depending on the number of projects and technical objectives. Let’s start with the foundational elements from this model: A core team leader / project manager partnership can facilitate these objectives. The project manager provides the project management discipline and tools while the core team (and core team…
Read MorePhase and Gate Structure for New Product Development
In previous articles we defined an element of lean as a phase and gate structure for new product development. This assumes a waterfall approach to the project (versus agile product development). A new product life cycle phase gate structure might entail, for example: “Definition, Concept, Design, Verification, Qualification, Production and End-of-Life”. (Your organization might decide…
Read MoreA Proposed Product Life Cycle Process
In our previous article we covered the advantages of a phase and gate structure for new product development. Now we can discuss some proposed phase names for a new product development or product life cycle (PLC) process. An organization may have an existing PLC process ‘baked-in’ to their culture and process documentation. Accordingly, there’s a wide range…
Read MoreStatement of Work Fundamentals
In my last article, we reviewed a proposed Product Life Cycle process, which starts with a “Define” phase. In the “Define” phase, we are defining the project as well as the product. We previously discussed the ‘technical leg’ of this process with the market analysis, identifying customer needs, product requirements, verification and validation, etc. Meanwhile, the…
Read MoreThe Project Approval Committee
A project approval committee can be an effective way to enable business decision-making and ensure projects are successful. Committees may be known as a project review or steering committee; however, consider the following (proposed) objectives as follows: With this approach, “approval” is more clearly the objective of the committee. The project approval committee (PAC) would…
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