Be Like Elon – Examining Elon Musk’s Product Development Thought Process

“I consider one of my core responsibilities in running companies to have an environment where great engineers can flourish.”

Below is a link to a video where Elon is elaborating on his product development thought process. 

https://youtu.be/Jgw-_hlFQk4?si=gjKQtYs1Y08oKXRP

Summarized in 5 recommendations:

1. Make requirements less dumb

2. Delete the part or process

3. Simplify or optimize

4. Accelerate cycle-time

5. Automate

With this in mind, let’s use some creative license and speculate on these recommendations and characterize them as design-for-six-sigma, systems engineering, and some specific tools or deliverables.

First, since there are several similar DFSS thought processes, the one you’ll find in these articles comprises of

• Understand Customer Needs
• Define Initial Solution
• Model Design Performance
• Optimize Design for Value
• Verify Design and Models
• Control

Several of Elon Musk’s recommendations can be enabled by DFSS and Systems Engineering best practices.  

Below are summary tables that begin with Elon’s recommendation and corresponding DFSS and Systems Engineering considerations:

Elon’s Recommendation	DFSS Thought Process	Systems Engineering	Deliverables and DFSS Tools
Make requirements less dumb	Understand Customer Needs (know where your requirements are coming from)	Requirements Validation   Requirements Management	– Market Analysis – Product Requirements Document – Quality Function Deployment

A takeaway from Elon is: requirements are generally not detailed enough, or questioned enough.  Also, optimizing something that should not exist…we can interpret this as a design or feature without a requirement or customer need.  For more information, there is a heavy emphasis in these articles on:

Validation/Systems Engineering   

Why Market Requirements Really Don’t Exist

Enabling Customer Value in Product Design

Design Optimization Using Value Equations

What is Validation?

Elon’s Recommendation	DFSS Thought Process	Systems Engineering	Deliverables and DFSS Tools
Delete the part or process	Define Initial Solution   Model Design Performance	Assess the ability of selected design concept to meet all requirements	– Modified Pugh Concept Selection Matrix – Analytical Model of Selected Design Concept – Transfer Functions – Manufacturing Feasibility – Risk Assessment – Design Failure Modes and Effects Analysis – Design for Manufacturing, Assembly and Test

In general, Elon is suggesting that we don’t “over-engineer”.  Adding things in case they are needed is not an optimized design.  Selecting and modeling the best design concept sooner in the product development process will help avoid this.  Also, analyzing the design for manufacturing risks and potential causes of failures enable risk mitigation in the design phase to make the necessary adjustments.  (Note that these design risk mitigations aren’t additions-in-case-they-are-needed, rather they are justified by analysis.)

Elon’s Recommendation	DFSS Thought Process	Systems Engineering	Deliverables and DFSS Tool
Accelerate Cycle Time   Automate	Leverage analytical modeling	Requirements management databases   Requirement re-use   Verified models of design performance   Product development artifacts	– Design and part libraries   – Engineering infrastructure   – All of the above deliverables and DFSS tools can be re-used to accelerate and automate the product development cycle

Finally, does your company have an environment where great engineers can flourish? 

The analysis above could be considered as a way to get started.