Knowledge is Power – When You Use It

As Francis Bacon said in the 16th century, “Knowledge itself is power.”

If this is true, then why would we not bring as much knowledge as possible up front to the concept development of a product design?

“We do,” I have heard. “CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) has been available for 35 years bringing much more knowledge through virtual analysis.”  This is true, and these advances have been required to engineer products to the levels of performance and durability demanded in today’s market.  Most everyone will agree to its importance and that CAE is vital to today’s climate.  The concern, however, is that the product concept design, for the most part, is completed before the CAE refinement happens.

I am talking about the space that comes before CAE and development and validation.

“Oh, I see,” you say. “You mean market and customer features analysis.  We have a whole department dedicated to this.”  Again, true, but this is not the step that I am referring to.  I am most concerned with the gap between the market analysis and the engineering.  This is what I am referring to as the “product concept design.” 

The product concept design stage is the most under-knowledged step in the process.  I know, you are different and I don’t know your industry, but typically this stage is where engineers turn market wants into functioning product.  Some refer to this as QFD or the setting of detailed design specifications.  This can be a magical time and once the team accomplishes it, the design is handed over to more engineers for CAE refinement.  Everyone is busily giddy about the prospects of fame and fortune.  You are confident you hit the sweet spot in the market and you have the best engineers in the world that are going the make this a quality product.  Now let’s get this to manufacturing.  Instantly supply chain and manufacturing get to work.  And then you get the news.  “What! What do you mean we are over our cost targets?” You exclaim. 

Let’s back up the boat for a minute.  I have made some pretty big generality statements.  This is bonk and you know it.  Your company doesn’t pull this.  You hit your targets, and if not you get things fixed.  Fine, if this doesn’t apply to you, please stop reading and continue your business as usual.

So let’s get back to the gap that I am talking about.  This is not the “knowledge gap” from the 70’s where the socioeconomic gap is increasing between higher and lower educated people, or from the burgeoning CAE world that demonstrated that we commit most of our decisions too early before we have much knowledge, I am referring to a more specific gap.  Let’s call this gap the “product concept design gap.”  This is the time between the voice of the customer study and the engineering.

My premise is that this time, sometimes filled by QFD, is the least funded and most absent of knowledge of consequences.  It is usually accomplished in a rather linear process where customer benefits are turned into product functions are turned into a detailed design specification.  That’s it.  Once completed we are off to engineering where valuable CAE and validation resources are put into play to produce a quality product.  Manufacturing assessments or supply chain or quality control are typically put in play somewhere during or toward the end of engineering.  So, I like the marketing voice of the customer and I like the engineering, but I do not like the excessive lack of knowledge and accountability that is evident during the “product concept design.”

So the cycle goes – marketing finds the sweet spot, QFD turns it into design specifications, engineering makes it work and robust, manufacturing figures out how to build it, money starts flowing large, problems are encountered in manufacturing, more money flows, six sigma experts smother the scene, more money flows, fingers start to point, “if we didn’t need that, or could have designed this,” comments fly – well, you get the point.  So at this point everyone has completely forgotten the “busily giddy about the prospects of fame and fortune” comment that I made earlier.

In order to minimize risk and maximize your profit potential, do what Francis Bacon implied and use more knowledge.  My twist in this article is to emphasize the importance of bringing more down stream knowledge up front before committing the engineering time and expense.  The fact is that once engineering has exhausted its time and money making a product work, the chances for change to the design are limited.  No matter how bad the downstream problems may be, these challenges are typically addressed through fancy and costly manufacturing processes and squeezing of the supply chain.

Look critically at each and every design feature and part with an eye for manufacturing, quality, customer delight, maintenance, sustainability, etc. before committing engineering time and money.  Get the knowledge from the downstream operations up into the concept design phase and build a business case for the design that everyone can stand behind.