Posts by Rob Allen

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: “What shall the design provide (output) @ input conditions?” “What does design need (inputs) from the customer in order for the design to…

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…

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…

In my previous article, we established some high-level objectives for lean product development as follows: Better understand the customer (maximize customer value) Do the right projects (product, project and portfolio value analysis) Do projects right (minimize waste and rework) Level load the organization (minimize bottlenecks and resource constraints) Create and re-use artifacts (standardize and sustain best practices) These might be considered…

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: Better understand the customer (maximize customer value) Do the right projects (product, project and portfolio…

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: Facilitate a lean project Understand customer needs (requirements validation and/or agile product development) Maximize customer (product) value (product value estimation) A core team leader / project manager partnership…

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…

In my 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…

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…

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: Approve new projects (and project resources) Approve project phase (phase gate) completion Approve project go-forward plans (including resources)…