Design for manufacture is also a critical part of designing and producing great products. Product Design needs to match well with what a manufacturing process capabilities (Cpk as discussed). If product design requirements and production capabilities don’t match there will be on going product quality issues.
I’ve seen this more with smaller companies and lower volume products. Automotive and consumer products work at such high volumes and carry such risk that they have corporate controls in place that drive these processes. They also understand the cost of poor quality only goes up as the product goes further into its life cycle.
I can confirm what you write also from my experience. In the automotive industry we need to be very focused on quality, because failures can cost lives. Even small ones. In my carrier I had to deal with those issues constantly and we used exactly the methods you explained. There is only one thing I see differently. Firing people does not create a quality oriented culture. Quite the opposite, it creates a culture of fear and bad politics and this is not helpful at all. If managers set quality on priority no one consistently (also when in their own decisions), encourage speak up, care and take ownership, when they are needed, quality will emerge.
Awesome Tools + Awesome People = Awesome Quality! Having people who are naturally enjoy problem solving, and secondly if they lived and breathed the pains of product introduction before can amp up the effectiveness of these tools. Great Article!
Glad you liked it! I’ve always wondered how manufacturing and quality systems are different in semiconductor industries. I’ve spent most of my time more on the consumer product side of the HW value chain
Traceability was a major part of my PM job. If we had change in Bill of Materials or specifications, I wrote the document that notified customers (before & after, scope, timeframes, how to track, SKUs, ...). It's not something you see much in consumer hardware, obvs.
Design for manufacture is also a critical part of designing and producing great products. Product Design needs to match well with what a manufacturing process capabilities (Cpk as discussed). If product design requirements and production capabilities don’t match there will be on going product quality issues.
I’ve seen this more with smaller companies and lower volume products. Automotive and consumer products work at such high volumes and carry such risk that they have corporate controls in place that drive these processes. They also understand the cost of poor quality only goes up as the product goes further into its life cycle.
I can confirm what you write also from my experience. In the automotive industry we need to be very focused on quality, because failures can cost lives. Even small ones. In my carrier I had to deal with those issues constantly and we used exactly the methods you explained. There is only one thing I see differently. Firing people does not create a quality oriented culture. Quite the opposite, it creates a culture of fear and bad politics and this is not helpful at all. If managers set quality on priority no one consistently (also when in their own decisions), encourage speak up, care and take ownership, when they are needed, quality will emerge.
Awesome Tools + Awesome People = Awesome Quality! Having people who are naturally enjoy problem solving, and secondly if they lived and breathed the pains of product introduction before can amp up the effectiveness of these tools. Great Article!
Excellent review. Props from a former semiconductor #prodmgmt vet.
Glad you liked it! I’ve always wondered how manufacturing and quality systems are different in semiconductor industries. I’ve spent most of my time more on the consumer product side of the HW value chain
Traceability was a major part of my PM job. If we had change in Bill of Materials or specifications, I wrote the document that notified customers (before & after, scope, timeframes, how to track, SKUs, ...). It's not something you see much in consumer hardware, obvs.