Chapter 3 OSCM

Contract manufacturer

An organization that performs manufacturing and/or purchasing needed to produce a product or device not for itself but as a service to another firm.

Core competency

The one thing that a firm can do better than its competitors. The goal is to have a core competency that yields a long-term competitive advantage to the company.

Characteristics of core competency

A core competency has three characteristics: 1. It provides potential access to a wide variety of markets. 2. It increases perceived customer benefits. 3. It is hard for competitors to imitate.

Fully vertically integrated firm

A firm where all activities from the design to the fabrication of the individual parts are handled in-house.

Outsourced company

A company that only sells products and outsources all design and manufacturing functions.

Phase 0: Planning

This phase begins with corporate strategy and includes assessment of technology developments and market objectives. The output of the planning phase is the project mission statement, which specifies the target market for the product, business goals, key assumptions, and constraints.

Phase 1: Concept development

In this phase, the needs of the target market are identified, alternative product concepts are generated and evaluated, and one or more concepts are selected for further development and testing.

Concept

A description of the form, function, and features of a product and is usually accompanied by a set of specifications, an analysis of competitive products, and an economic justification of the project.

Phase 2: System-level design

This design phase includes the definition of the product architecture and the decomposition of the product into subsystems and components.

Phase 3: Detail design

This phase includes the complete specification of the geometry, materials, and tolerances of all the unique parts in the product and the identification of all the standard parts to be purchased from suppliers.

Outputs of Phase 3

The outputs of this phase are the drawings or computer files describing the geometry of each part and its production tooling, the specifications of purchased parts, and the process plans for the fabrication and assembly of the product.

Phase 4: Testing and refinement

This phase involves the construction and evaluation of multiple preproduction (prototype) versions of the product.

Prototypes testing

Prototypes are tested to determine whether the product will work as designed and whether the product satisfies customer needs.

Phase 5: Production ramp-up

In this phase, the product is made using the intended production system. The purpose of the ramp-up is to train the workforce and to work out any remaining problems in the production processes.

Production ramp-up products

Products produced during production ramp-up are sometimes supplied to preferred customers and are carefully evaluated to identify any remaining flaws.

Transition from production ramp-up

The transition from production ramp-up to ongoing production is usually gradual.

Generic (market-pull products)

The team begins with a market opportunity and selects appropriate technologies to meet customer needs.

Technology-push products

The team begins with a new technology, then finds an appropriate market.

Platform products

The team assumes that the new product will be built around an established technological subsystem.

Process-intensive products

Characteristics of the product are highly constrained by the production process.

Customized products

New products are slight variations of existing configurations.

High-risk products

Technical or market uncertainties create high risks of failure.

Quick-build products

Rapid modeling and prototyping enables many design-build-test cycles.

Complex systems

System must be decomposed into several subsystems and many components.

Quality function deployment (QFD)

A process that helps a company determine the product characteristics important to the consumer and to evaluate its own product in relation to others.

House of quality

A matrix that helps a product design team translate customer requirements into operating and engineering goals.

Steps to Build a House of Quality

Develop a list of customer requirements for the product, ranked in order of importance. An evaluation of these characteristics should support or refute customer perception of the product.

Technical characteristics of the product

A set of technical characteristics of the product is developed that should relate directly to customer requirements.

Evaluation of characteristics

An evaluation of these characteristics should support or refute customer perception of the product.

Value Analysis/Value Engineering

Analysis with the purpose of simplifying products and processes by achieving equivalent or better performance at a lower cost.

Ecodesign

The incorporation of environmental considerations into the design and development of products or services, relating to the entire life cycle, including materials, manufacturing, distribution, and the eventual disposal of waste.

Over-the-wall approach

The designer is sitting on one side of the wall and throwing the design over the wall to the manufacturing engineers.

Designing Products for Manufacture and Assembly

The detailing of the materials, shapes, and tolerance of the individual parts of a product, starting with sketches of parts and assemblies and progressing to computer-aided design (CAD).

Service Products

Products that involve direct customer involvement in the process, introducing significant variability in the time it takes to serve a customer and the level of knowledge required of the firm's employees.

Complexity

The number of steps involved in a service and the possible actions that can be taken at each step.

Divergence

The number of ways a customer/service provider interaction can vary at each step according to the needs and abilities of each.

Time-to-market

A measure of product development success, including the frequency of new product introductions and the time from initial concept to market introduction.

Productivity

A measure of how well resources are used, often assessed by the number of engineering hours, the cost of materials, and tooling costs.

Quality

Measures that relate to the reliability of the product in use (conformance quality), the product's performance features compared to customer expectations (design quality), and the ability of a factory or service process to produce the product.

Designing Service Products - Financial justification

The need for designing and implementing a new service to be financially justified due to its associated costs.

Difference between Service products and regular products

direct customer involvement in the process introduces significant variability in the process in terms of both the time that it takes to serve a customer and the level of knowledge required of the firm’s employees.

Designing Service Products - Similarity to current services

The new service should fit into the current service experience for the customer.

Designing Service Products - Similarity to current processes

Even the greatest service ideas require operational support to execute.

Manufacturing costs

Costs that are reduced when a producer manufactures a product using fewer materials, less water, energy, and generating less waste.

Value Analysis/Engineering Brainstorming questions

whether design features are necessary, if parts can be combined, how to reduce weight, and if nonstandard parts can be eliminated.

Product development performance

The assessment of various metrics including time-to-market, productivity, and quality.

Defects per million opportunities

A measure of the ability of a factory or service process to produce the product.

Initial concept

The starting point in the product development process leading to market introduction.

Customer involvement

The engagement of customers in the service process, which introduces variability.

Operational support

The necessary backing required to execute service ideas effectively.

Life cycle considerations

Factors related to the entire life cycle of a product or service, from materials to disposal.

How to counter the over-the-wall problem in designing products for manufacture and assembly

Consult manufacturing engineers during the design stage to avoid potential problems.