Free Product Development Process Audit

Distributed Optimal Design Supply Chain Management Technical Risk Management Development Schedule

If you have a substantial product development effort underway or planned for the near future, DFM Consulting will provide you with a free audit of your product development process and plans. Learn if your process will find the optimal product design. See how you can control development schedules and costs and manage risks. Assess the communication and control channels between program management, marketing, and design engineering. See if your supply chain will be integrated into a process of optimal design and continual improvement. Contact us today concerning a free audit at your site.

Distributed Optimal Design

This simple series of questions will assess whether your organization has a coherent process for distributed optimal product design:

1. If two alternative designs of a new product are presented to any engineer in your organization, can he or she determine which is better? and explain why?
2. Will all engineers pick the same design? use the same rationale?
3. If engineers are presented with alternative designs for the component for which they are responsible, can they select the better design and explain their reasoning?
4. Is their reasoning logically and quantitatively consistent with the rationale in question 2?

If the answer to all these questions is yes, you certainly have a process for distributed optimal product design. Even if only systems engineers and project managers can select among whole product alternatives, and if engineers cannot explain their choices, you may have a winning system if there is a method to the selections, and if the methods used for component design decisions are consistent with the methods used for whole product design.

Another key component of distributed optimal design is instant awareness of cost impact. DFM Consulting can assess whether your designers have sufficient visibility into manufacturing costs to make optimal design trades.

Supply Chain Management

DFM Consulting can examine your contracting relationships with partners and suppliers. Will your supply chain earn more profit by producing optimal designs and continually improving them? Or is it in their interest to manufacture high cost parts with no ongoing improvements. We can show you whether improvements can be made to your supply chain methods and strategy.

Technical Risk Management

Do you have a quantitative assessment of technical risks that captures the expected impact on development schedule and cost? Do your processes just minimize risk, or do you take risks where they are justified by customer wants and needs? DFM Consulting can evaluate your risk templates and your process for assessing and managing risk.

Development Cost and Schedule

Does your product development schedule properly account for project complexity and modularization? Does your cost estimate include the cost of technical risks? DFM Consulting can assess whether your schedules and costs are likely to be met based on the processes you uses for creating and managing them.

Contact DFM Consulting today to see if your organization qualifies for our free audit of your product development process.