For almost 20 years the staff of EAC Product Development Solutions has believed there is a better way to develop products. The “traditional” processes are fundamentally broken and the symptoms of these fractures are a painful reality for many of our customers. Among others, they face missed deadlines, failed product launches, and are unable to effectively manage resources. There’s a better way.
We believe that product development is a continuous system; not a single-track process with a defined start and finish. It extends beyond the engineering department and engages everyone within a company. Because of its breadth, it needs continual support. It begins with the alignment of business objectives and initiatives. Once an entire organization understands the goals for the future they can agree upon a plan for success and focus on putting the right people, processes, and tools in place to meet their goals, drive innovation, and increase productivity.

Each part of the product development system has distinct needs. People in Management, Marketing, Engineering, Manufacturing, Procurement, and Support all have different needs and expectations throughout the product life cycle. We offer a wide variety of tools and services to meet the needs of the entire organization.

– Software tools for design, data management, and publishing
– Training and Education Services
– Implementation and Support Services
– Dynamic Publishing Support and Implementation Services
– Engineering and Design Services
– Process Consulting (Lean Product Development Services)
– Product Development System Assessments

The culture at EAC Product Development Solutions revolves around our customers and clients doing things better. We work very hard to be the best product development solutions provider in the world. We strive to do what’s right during every engagement and maintain transparency with our customers. We work diligently to find areas where our company and our clients can work smarter to become more productive and profitable. Most importantly we understand that we work with people. Human beings that need to live, laugh, and enjoy work.

Know that when someone works with EAC they’re working with the best. The best teams, with the best people, focused on the best processes and technologies. We believe there is a better way to develop products and it starts with EAC Product Development Solutions.

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.

Here are 7 seemingly simple steps that, when followed in the correct order, can help ensure you or your organization will have a successful PLM Implementation. If you have been in the industry long enough, you will know that there is no such thing as a perfect implementation. But, by knowing how to structure your project and involve the right people, you can achieve success and ultimately realize the true value of your new technology.

1: Open discussion among stakeholders: This foundation sets the stage for a successful deployment. At a minimum, three objectives should act as a foundation for every PLM implementation.

• Identify a goal or target. This step will ensure that everyone involved has an understanding of the project scope, the end goal, long-term expectations, and how the decision will impact the organization.
• Form a project budget. The budget can be the hardest to agree on because cost is a factor in every project.
• Define a time frame. Identifying a realistic time frame is what ensures you stay on track and within budget.

2: Project Assessment and Kickoff:

• Project Assessment: This often-overlooked step is vital to understanding the terms of a project. Clearly define what problems are being solved. Define metrics that will be used to measure success. Take time to step back and look before you leap.
• Have a formal kickoff meeting: User involvement is key to a successful project. The sooner you make users aware of the project parameters, the more included they will feel and more willing to accept change when the time comes. A one-hour project kickoff meeting is a good place to introduce your company’s plans to the user base.

3: Solution Definition: Typically driven by the results of your assessment; this is one of the most important technical steps of a project. This is where you match the functionally of a PLM system to the project goals and identify any gaps in OOTB configuration. Sometimes this process is aided by sitting down with a company like EAC to vet out any possible gaps.

4: Solution Configuration: At this stage, the PLM system is configured to suit the project goals and solution definition. This is where companies like EAC can take the reins and complete all necessary technical tasks, including but not limited to, all installation and configurations of needed modules and add-ons.

5: Testing and Validation: This step should include a detailed walk through of day-to-day activities within the PLM system and should involve a cross-functional validation/testing team. Take this step seriously. Lack of testing can result in poor user experience and adoption. Identify tweaks then retest until all parties are comfortable with the PLM functionality.

6: Product Configuration: This is often called the “go-live” event and involves the execution and implementation of everything defined up to this point. All core team members should have signed off on the final configuration and implementation plan.

7: Training and Mentoring: While this topic is listed last, training and mentoring should run parallel with your go-live event. Typically, user training is done prior to the go-live event, but not so early that the users forget what they learned by the time they get access to the new system. We have found that the most successful time for this training is during the down-time in the production implementation phase of the project.

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.