The timing, the mood, and the purpose all align to produce one perfect moment. It’s the moment you realize that you’ve sparked a partnership that will truly last. We’re talking about a business partnership, naturally.
All joking aside, a true partnership is really a beautiful thing. Many companies similar in nature to EAC talk about their customers as just that, customers. We believe it is much more than a buyer and seller relationship — we believe in partnerships.
Business to business service and technology providers that focus only on selling, tend to miss the mark when it comes to actually listening to their customer’s woes. The mentality of “I’ll say I’ll do this, but really I am going to do that” is dismally common regardless of the industry or service. I’ve heard horror stories from our patrons about other vendors failing to live up to their end of the bargain.
“We had been looking round and round for a good partner, it was hard because we had been beaten up pretty bad [by previous relationships with VARs].” Said Linda Cave, from Mott Corp. By using honesty and integrity as a foundation, EAC has built a strong relationship with their organization.
EAC is different. And we have a portfolio of hundreds of patrons that prove it. Here are a select few:
“I haven’t worked with anyone else — but I don’t think I’d want to. We couldn’t ask for a better partner, honestly.”
– Ahmed Kansara, Generation Brands
“I get a statement of work — and that is it! It is not only fair, but it’s 100% accurate. It is perfect every time.”
– Linda Cave, Mott Corp.
“It is nice to have someone there for support… In all, I like how you guys do business.”
– Todd Anderson, Morgan AM&T
“There was a big investment right away on EAC’s side to listen. What sold me was that there was an appropriate amount of time spent [by EAC] up front understanding our business needs.”
– Kevin Caskey, MGK
We don’t mean to brag (ok, maybe a little bit) but why wouldn’t we want to shout this from the rooftops? In the end, it is truly your success that makes us thrive as an organization. In order to do that, we must work together as partners to achieve a common goal. It is as they say, “you complete me”.
I have the great privilege of talking with many of our customers about their experiences with technology and our service options. During many of those conversations I hear customers talk about how challenging adopting technology has been for them. In fact, I hear the same few phrases over and over again. “It takes so much time to get spooled up.” “We don’t have time to learn new technology.” “It’s such a hassle to send everyone through training with new releases.” And, I’d bet that many of you have also said something along those lines.
Many organizations hesitate to update or change technology, especially CAD technology, because it can dramatically impact time to market and project capacity. It simply isn’t realistic to stop or slow production to allow for your CAD users to become familiar with a new tool.
I’m not surprised that this is a common thread among organizations. Many of our customers have told me stories about weeks of downtime and months of a brutal tug of war between man, computer, and the worst enemy of all — change.
But don’t worry; I’ve got some good news. Our customers who have upgraded from versions of Pro/ENGINEER to the new and improved Creo Parametric are seeing a major difference when it comes to adoption. Simply put, it’s easy and fast. I’m not talking about just a few customers who have experienced this — it’s all of them.
Dan Gage, Mechanical Engineer at JR Automation, said, “The transition to Creo Parametric 2.0 was much easier than moving from Wildfire 3.0 to 5.0. The interface is incredibly user friendly, the modeling portion is a lot more intuitive, and the ribbon interface makes it simple to navigate. Everything is right at your fingertips.” JR Automation was able to ramp up and get moving 50% faster than any other CAD release before it.
Imagine what that could mean for your business. It certainly makes the idea of adopting a new technology much, much brighter. So, if you haven’t done so already, try out Creo to see what our customers have been bragging about.
The saying “nobody is perfect” also applies to companies because no companies are perfect. Many organizations struggle with issues like getting their processes documented and their data management under control. Sometimes it is the members of the team that manage to hold it all together and enable substantial growth. However, this approach typically is neither scalable nor sustainable.
At EAC, we have a service called the Product Development System Assessment (PDSA). In short, the assessment helps identify areas within an organization that could improve — whether it be processes, data management, communication, or organizational change. We have helped companies across the country identify areas of their organizations that may not be reaching their full potential and provide them with a personalized roadmap for improvement.
One such company, Thermos (yes, Thermos — the company that made your really cool Spiderman lunchbox as a kid), has worked with EAC to identify areas where their organization could improve. “Hot Matters. Cold Matters. It Matters,” Thermos’s corporate mantra, not only identifies with their well-known product, but also refers to their high standards of quality, safety, living green, and giving back.
Over the last decade, Thermos has experienced tremendous growth. But as VP of Marketing Julie Ryan said, “We’ve got a great team and what we’ve been doing for the last 10 years has been working. But what’s making it work is the people — not the process.”
EAC was able provide a roadmap that included implementation of a project management system. This would allow Thermos to begin building a foundation that will support and sustain growth. Because let’s face it — Hot Matters. Cold Matters. It Matters.
Michael Kennedy published Product Development for the Lean Enterprise in 2003. It was the first time that literature emerged regarding Toyota’s huge success with their Product Development Process. The book is about a company in distress that adopts new principles modeled after Toyota’s product development process and eventually the company emerges from the crisis leveraging a better way to develop products. Kennedy’s book was written as a companion to Allen Ward’s book, Lean Product and Process Development.
These books provide insight into the way Toyota develops products through what is called the 4 Pillar Framework. Each of the following framework elements has a distinct role in their product development process.
1. Entrepreneurial System Designer (Chief Engineer)
At Toyota, the “Project Manager” is called the Chief Engineer, and the discipline of project leadership is significantly different. Upper management passes the Chief Engineer a very high level concept of what’s to be developed and it is the Chief Engineer’s job to figure out how to execute and turn that concept into a product. The Chief Engineer leads both the marketing effort and the execution of the project. This single individual is responsible both for developing the concept of the product and for the project’s execution. In this case, there is no loss of knowledge in the hand off between marketing and manufacturing. It results in a valuable and realistic product concept — a balance point between what will serve the market well and what can be realized by corporate capabilities.
2. Teams of responsible experts
The project work is executed by teams of responsible experts. The key here is that the individuals are delegated actual responsibility, not just tasks. The Japanese see the product as a system and organize a series of teams around the product’s sub-systems. All stakeholders groups of a subsystem will serve on the module development team, and get together negotiate subsystem goals based upon individual groups’ knowledge and needs. These goals support the goals (initially set by the Chief Engineer) of the system as a whole.
3. Cadence, Pull, Flow
These, you may notice, are the key principles of Lean Manufacturing. It is important to recognize that Lean Product Development and Lean Manufacturing do in fact share common roots. With Japanese Lean Product Development, visual management plays a key role in the Cadence, Pull, and Flow of a project.
Toyota uses what is called an Obeya (literally, “big room”) that acts as a project war room. This room contains everything a group of stakeholders may need to facilitate rapid decision-making throughout the lifetime of the project.
4. Set based concurrent engineering
This is a design approach that may pursue multiple concurrent technical solutions to a single design problem. Knowledge developed in the various pursuits is fully captured graphically in A3s and is available for later reuse. This approach recognizes the value in using projects to drive the research and development of design concepts. And though only one design approach will be chosen to serve the driving project, the others will emerge more deeply understood and poised for use in later projects. Some would argue that more is learned during a failure than a success and this approach captures the knowledge learned during those instances. Set based design eliminates the problem of rework loopbacks which are a prime culprit in extending product time to market.
At EAC, we want to change the way you think about product development. We want to inject these ideas into your standard product development operation that will open a path to operating in a better way. Both the books listed above are excellent sources to keep this conversation going. Check them out and comment below.
At EAC, we’ve developed a framework that looks at product development as a system. We call this framework the Product Development Operating System — the PDOS. (Shown above.) To understand how the PDOS framework functions, you must first understand the elements of a competitive system.
The first element of a competitive system is information. Competitive systems have both generalized and specific information. Generalized information covers the full suite of potential strategies and tactics — a playbook. Specialized information is general information that is selected to appropriately address the specific competition — the game plan.
The second element in a competitive system is preparation. Like any sport, practice tends to be a primary contributing factor in who wins the game. In the system sense, behaviors used in competition are rehearsed to develop deeper skills. As learning occurs during practice, ideas, strategies, and tactics are then added to the playbook.
Naturally, the competition itself is the final piece in a competitive system. All skills and knowledge developed through the first two parts of the system are then applied during the competition.
Looking at the framework, you notice that the three components of a competitive system comprise the rows of the PDOS framework. The columns represent the three tiers of the organization. Each tier of the organization has responsibilities that impact the systematic operation of Product Development.
The PDOS thrives on the flow of information. Knowledge is the value medium of product development and information is what flows through the system. A knowledge base that includes Product Development specific information technology tools like PLM systems, design tools, and simulation tools serves as the foundation supporting the other layers of the PDOS.
The preparation layer is where the “important” work happens. This is a sanctuary for continuous improvement. This layer is a core part of the Japanese system. In Stephen Covey’s book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he talks about the division of the urgent work and the important work. He notes avoid letting the urgent work overwhelm the important work because, if that happens, the important work never gets done.
The preparation layer is what is missing from the western approach to product development. We have made an orphan out of feedback, which is the learning element that is critical to continuous improvement.
In Product Development, the competition layer represents the “urgent” part of our charter, the execution of product development or projects. Process thinking organizations see the upper right hand box as “Product Development”. Organizations that shift to a Systems Thinking perspective of Product Development put themselves in a stronger competitive position.
Small and medium sized businesses may appear smaller and more nimble than their large corporate counterparts, but they have the same need to manage engineering, inventory and process changes. Their need for this change management is just on a smaller scale. SMBs should have access to the same high-tech solutions for Product Data Management (PDM), only scaled to meet the needs appropriate for their size.
PTC Windchill: for PDM Essentials
Engineering projects both large and small require up-to-date product versions. Design, production and quality control teams all require quick access to the correct and most current product information. And access to this change management process must also be controlled to prevent unauthorized changes.
Windchill PDM Essentials is an easy to deploy system that meets these goals. You do not need to spend countless hours configuring the software to meet your individual needs. Configuration and installation wizards allow for fast, easy setup with less cost to the company.
CAD with Creo
CAD data management is essential for effective product improvement. Teams need the ability to work together to share their ideas. CAD models are stored in a central location with revision control features. With the included ability to use a 3-D viewer and markup utilities, those without the CAD capability installed can still work with the same stored model designs and provide their input.
Small and medium businesses can especially benefit from the ability to reuse and re-engineer existing designs. This is how a smaller business can leverage its prior work and find ways to grow. Control over different design versions allows small teams to be nimble and avoid design mistakes that could lead to increased costs and lost time. This is why Windchill PDM comes with PTC Creo View Lite and it works with a variety of other CAD systems, including AutoCAD.
Office Documents and More
This same change management can also be applied to regular office documents with a check in and a check out function. Check out locking prevents other users from modifying documents while the work is in process with a different team. Check in releases the document to other approved users. The history of when changes were made, and who made the changes, is stored to track the most current versions and ensure the changes were authorized.
Database searching is simplified to reduce the time needed to locate designs and documents. The interface allows you to search with multiple terms, from product numbers to created-by dates and names.
Keeping it all Moving at the Right Pace
Data publishing can also be scheduled to allow for viewing and access of documents at exactly the right time. This is how product lifecycle functions control when teams have access to data. It ensures that parts for manufacturing are not ordered before the final design is approved. Keeping everything on the right schedule is key and this level of lifecycle control ensures that all the people in your organization (regardless of size) are kept in the loop and product development flows smoothly and quickly.
These are the ways that PTC Windchill with PDM Essentials gives small to medium businesses the data and change management solutions that meets their current needs with the ability to add solutions as the company grows. From EAC’s perspective, we see PDM Essentials as an excellent base foundation that can be modified to meet your unique business needs – large or small. Please contact us so that we can tailor a solution that fits your business and your budget.
