Shortening the Product Development Cycle

The demands on product developers have never been greater. Product life cycles have shortened and continue to shrink. Product technologies, particularly in the electronics and materials areas, are changing faster than ever. As a consequence, the pressure is on to shorten product development cycles. Frequently, the R&D manager becomes the focal point of efforts to cut development time. To deal effectively with this challenge, the technical manager must look beyond popular but limited solutions to see the breadth of the problem. Such techniques and tools as quality function deployment (QFD), simultaneous engineering, and computer-aided design (CAD) still leave many time-saving opportunities untouched (1). Great reductions in cycle time are obtainable by applying various techniques blended to suit a particular company's needs. Fortunately, the R&D manager is in a strong position to initiate and foster many time-saving approaches. This article covers 10 such approaches in which such managers play a particularly important role. 1. BE FLEXIBLE ABOUT PROCESS There are many sound approaches to managing R&D projects. Each method has its advantages and shortcomings. The correct approach can only be selected when one has a clear vision of which advantages are critical in a particular situation. For example, consider the tradeoff between managing development time and technical risk. Most product development systems, such as phased systems (see box, page 46), are designed to monitor and control technical risk. Such systems are effective and appropriate where reducing technical risk is the paramount concern. Yet managing technical risk is not always the prime objective. Speed can be more important when trying to head off an emerging competitor, and cost can dominate our concerns in a mature market. The most effective organizations have different development systems available and tuned to suit these distinct objectives. Without alternative processes, all projects tend to get sent through the same process, a common denominator that suits no objective well. In practice it usually errs on the side of minimizing technical risk at the expense of speed. This one-size-fits-all mentality usually creates a system tailored to the largest, most complex projects to the detriment of simpler ones. If the R&D manager is successful in minimizing product complexity, simpler systems can be used. 2. LET ECONOMICS BE YOUR GUIDE You need a yardstick to decide which development goal to stress for a particular project, and in business the time-tested yardstick is marked in dollars. It is both simple and valuable to develop financial yardsticks for the development process. Such yardsticks tell you the relative financial impact of project delay versus a product cost overrun. They guide you toward choosing the most productive development goal and applying a development process that facilitates this goal. In addition to these strategic decisions, there are countless daily tactical decisions where yardsticks help to make accurate, fast, low-level decisions on tradeoff issues. For example, is it worth spending $100 on air freight to get a sample into a customer's hands for evaluation two days sooner? How about buying an extra microscope for $2000 if it will cut a week off of the schedule? Or $50,000 for temporary tooling that will allow you to start production two months early while permanent tooling is being made? Without sound decision rules these decisions are likely to be made both incorrectly and slowly. The financial model that provides the yardsticks is not hard to build (2), but it requires cross-functional effort. The finance department may have the greatest expertise in financial model building, and marketing has important data. But R&D should probably initiate this activity because it will obtain the greatest benefit from the model. For instance, it is not unusual to discover that the product's development expense has far less impact on its lifde cycle profitability than development delay. …