Rapid Product Development
III. SOME LESSONS IN TIME
The Widget story is very real. It happens nearly every day. It happens in aerospace. It happens in the automotive industry. It happens in the consumer products industry, in the medical device industry, in the electronics industry, and it probably has happened to you. As one reads such a story, the characters start to become real people, and we begin to identify with them. When they realize that someone has beaten them to the new market, there is a sense of loss mixed with frustration. We actually feel sorry for the whole team. They tried so hard. On balance, they did things pretty much the way you could imagine your group at your company developing a new product. And that is the real point; doing things ‘‘the usual way’’ is not going to work as well, or as often as it once did. Simply stated, to win in today’s hypercompetitive global environment, you need to do some things differently than the rest of the pack.
Let us take a close look at the Widget story. Specifically, where could our friends have saved time? In hindsight, we are all experts, so let’s dig into the entire 57-week Widget product-development cycle. First, let’s try to save 8 weeks, or about 14%, which would at least put them in a dead heat with ACME, Inc. That will not result in the lion’s share of the market, but it is much better than being late. Next, let’s try to save 12 weeks, or about 21%, which would put them 1 month ahead of ACME. This would be better still, but a month is hardly a large margin, and with clever marketing and advertis-ing, ACME might still secure half the market. Finally, let’s see if it would have been possible to save 16 weeks, or about 28%, which would have com-pletely turned the tables with respect to product release and market share.
Notice the magnitudes we are dealing with in the current cases: 14% time savings to essentially tie, 21% cycle reduction to win, and 28% product accel-eration to provide an opportunity for market leadership.
Aiming toward the latter goal, let’s review Project Widget with the in-tention of finding those tasks or procedures where time could have been saved.
In each case, we will (1) identify a specific event, (2) examine the result of that event, and (3) propose a means by which the team could have saved time.
Clearly, all remedies will not apply in all cases, but if we can generate an approach that provides substantially more than 28% savings in the product development cycle, then all the proposed methods will not be required anyway.
1. Harry pours ‘‘cold water’’ on John’s new idea. As a result, it takes 3 weeks before they have the first meeting. New ideas are like seed-lings; they are very fragile and can easily be killed by a frost. Orga-nizations that intend to ‘‘do some things differently than the rest of the pack’’ need to recognize this fact of life and develop methods to encourage new ideas. Proposed suggestion: As soon as John has the kernel of an idea he thinks might be significant, coupled with his previously successful track record, he should feel thoroughly comfortable calling a meeting. Also, the first meeting need not in-clude VP level people. Additionally, if some people cannot make the first meeting, that is fine. Remember, the goal is to get the idea in front of people, allow them to assess it, enhance it, modify it, or simply think about it. The sketches and drawings are still necessary, but surely this should not take 3 weeks. The probable savings—1 week.
2. The entire team pauses after Susan notes that there is no approved budget for Project Widget. The result is that 2 weeks are lost as the effort grinds to a virtual standstill. Proposed suggestion: Recognize that the organization is in the business of generating new products.
Why does this come as such a surprise to upper management? In an organization that is fundamentally involved with new product development, management should investigate what has happened over the past 4 or 5 years. How many ‘‘special’’ projects were ulti-mately approved each year? For how many dollars? Because the company intends to develop new products, and all the good ideas certainly do not always happen before the annual budgets are ap-proved, then why not hold an appropriate fraction of the annual budget in reserve precisely for this type of ‘‘after the budget’’con-cept. Once the group achieves positive consensus regarding the idea, the project leader would be able to negotiate with management, without having to put the brakes on everything else. The rest of the
team could continue working while the formal budget is approved.
The savings in this case—2 weeks.
3. The budget is approved, but 20% lower than John’s best estimate.
The result is about 1 week lost when John has to go back for addi-tional funding increments. This is classic. Somehow, the financial side rarely trusts Engineering, Product Development, or Production to prepare an accurate budget. This is like a shortstop who will not throw to the second baseman because he does not think he can pivot properly. This team will not make very many double plays and will lose some games it should have won. Who is better prepared to assess all the development tasks? The people who will actually do them, or a finance officer who probably does not know what a sprue is? If the people are good enough to be on the team, then let them play the game. Study track records. Has John historically been ‘‘on the money’’ most of the time? If so, go with his best estimate. If he has been conservative or optimistic in the past, then adjust ac-cordingly. Besides, the company is looking at a half billion dollar potential market. If they are hampered by budgetary constraints and lose a week, that could translate into tens of millions of dollars of lost revenue and millions of dollars of lost profits. Balance this against ‘‘saving’’ $200,000 up front, which ultimately got spent anyway! If you are going to dive into a pool, you are going to get wet. Diving less enthusiastically will not keep you dry. Probable time savings.—1 week.
4. Going with the lower-cost prototype tooling bid, rather than spend-ing about $12,000 more to save 2 weeks. A classic example of pennywise and pound foolish. The team is ultimately going to spend 57 weeks and just over $1 million to develop the Widget.
This is equivalent to about $20,000 per week, or $40,000 for 2 weeks. Even using this simple ‘‘linear’’ reasoning, losing $40,000 to save $12,000 does not look especially wise. Further, the impact of the 2 weeks on ultimate market share could, and almost certainly will, be ‘‘nonlinear,’’ and far greater. Proposed suggestion: pay the extra money to save the time. An even better suggestion: Utilize rapid bridge tooling as discussed in Chapter 4. Minimum time sav-ings—2 weeks.
Note that the first four items are essentially ‘‘cultural.’’ They involve using different operational strategies designed to save time. In this case, if all
four suggestions were utilized, the total time saved would be about 6 weeks, or almost 11%. This is a good start. However, do not be deceived into thinking that this will be easy. Changes in the way organizations do things is never trivial. There is always the tendency to fall back on what has worked in the past. However, it is no longer the past, and the competition is starting to play smarter, and with better equipment.
5. The team opts for CNC-machined aluminum prototype tooling, un-aware of advances in rapid bridge tooling. From a CAD model, an RP&M master pattern can provide composite aluminum-filled ep-oxy (CAFE´ ) tooling. This method has been refined and improved by RP&M service bureaus over the past 4 years and is used when 20–500 prototypes are required in engineering thermoplastics. An-other process is direct ACES injection molding (Direct AIM). The core and cavity are built on a stereolithography apparatus (SLA),*
using the ACES (accurate clear epoxy solid) build style. Hand fin-ishing of the master patterns is required for both CAFE´ and Direct AIM. Unfortunately, female cavity finishing can take 2.5–3 times longer than building the master pattern on the RP&M system! The resulting core and cavity are mounted in a standard tool base [master unit die (MUD), DME, National, etc.] and subsequently operated on a plastic-injection-molding machine.
Rapid bridge tooling involves the following key steps:
1. Develop a solid CAD model of the desired part 2. Select a parting surface
3. Create a CAD model of the core, cavity, and any required slide actions
4. Build RP&M master pattern(s) [or the inserts themselves for Direct AIM]
5. Mold the core, cavity, and slide actions (for CAFE´ )
6. Assemble the core, cavity, and slide actions in a standard tool base
7. Injection mold true prototypes in a wide variety of engi-neering thermoplastics
* Note: The machine is called an SLA, but both the process and resulting parts are properly abbreviated as SL.
8. Accomplish all this within 3–5 weeks (depending on size and complexity)
9. Save 50–70% of the time required for conventional prototype tooling
Both CAFE´ and Direct AIM will be described in detail in Chapter 4.
In Direct AIM, the core and cavity are generated in the form of a thin shell. This enables the insertion of conformal cooling lines into the hollow space on the back of the core. The cooling lines are simply bent from thin-wall copper tubing. Either aluminum-filled epoxy or low-melting-point alloys of bismuth, antimony, tin, and lead can be used as a backing material to in-crease both strength and thermal conductivity (4). For simple tools, this work has been accomplished in as little as 1 week (5). For more complex geometries, 3 weeks is typical (6).
Fifty to 300 prototypes have been successfully injection molded using Direct AIM, in a wide range of engineering thermoplastics, including (a) poly-styrene, (b) polyethylene, (c) polypropylene, (d) ABS, and (e) nylon, with the quantities typically being smaller for the higher-melting-point thermoplastics (7). For glass-filled plastics, it is difficult to successfully injection mold more than about 50 acceptable parts (8). However, if a Direct AIM tool had merely generated five successful parts in 35% glass-filled polycarbonate, the Project Widget team still could have completed the first round of tests, without the need for CNC-machined aluminum prototype tooling. The time saved on the initial prototype tooling phase alone would have been about 9 weeks.
6. Furthermore, rapid bridge tooling provides additional benefits. The team would have discovered the undercut problem at an earlier date, when the part would have seized in a CAFE´ tool. Also, when they found the problem with excessive part deflection and completed the second CAD iteration using 10% thicker sections, ProtoMetrics very likely could have built a second CAFE´ tool within 3 weeks.
Compare this with the 5 1/2 weeks it actually took for the rework of the prototype aluminum tool. Thus, an additional time savings of 2 1/2 weeks.
Note that if all six suggestions had been followed, the team could have saved 17.5 weeks, or about 30% of their actual product-development cycle.
They would have reached PRD 2 months ahead of ACME, Inc., which would have had a dramatic effect on their share of the new Widget market. Further, they would have achieved all these time savings before they had even gotten
to production tooling, which is still the single greatest product-development bottleneck!
7. The team orders production tooling. They select conventional steel tooling, machined using a combination of CNC and EDM, because the Widget has some very fine detail. This tooling required 18 weeks to fabricate, assemble, and test. Adding 2 weeks to injection mold the first lot of production parts, the total was 20 weeks. However, they might have used ‘‘rapid production tooling,’’ such as 3D Kel-tool, ExpressTool, RapidTool, ProMetal, or Nickel Ceramic Composite (NCC) tooling. We shall discuss each of these methods further in another chapter. In this case, the production tooling could have been ready in 6–8 weeks. Conservatively assuming the longer time period and allowing the same 2 weeks for injection molding the first lot of production parts, the net time savings for this step alone would be 10 weeks.
Had the team implemented all seven suggestions, the time savings could have been a phenomenal 27.5 weeks, or almost half of their entire Widget development cycle. This is not ‘‘Fantasy Land.’’ Multinational corporations, original equipment manufacturers suppliers, and RP&M service bureaus using rapid tooling are discovering time savings even greater than 50%. These dra-matic reductions account for the growing interest in rapid tooling. The poten-tial benefits are enormous. Some forward-looking organizations have joined consortiums to help them gain confidence during early process refinement (9–
11). These companies know that once the techniques get past their ‘‘growing pains’’ and mature into standard commercial practice, anyone NOT utilizing rapid tooling will be at a serious disadvantage. Remember, as we said earlier, to win in today’s hypercompetitive global environment, you need to do some things differently than the rest of the pack.
REFERENCES
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11. LASER-engineered net shaping (LENS), Sandia National Laboratory, Albuquer-que, NM.