REENGINEERING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

DRM Associates

A major element of improving time-to-market and implementing integrated product development (IPD) practices is reengineering the product development (PD) process. The PD process is a major factor affecting product development cost, schedule and quality. DRM Associates can assist with re-engineering your product development process. We bring a sound methodology and, most importantly, the experience with practical approaches and strategies for improved product development.

We offer the flexibility of two basic consulting approaches. The first approach is to go after the high-payoff opportunities quickly. This is done by organizing an experienced multi-functional process improvement team to brainstorm and implement improvements or organizing a larger group to use the "workout" approach popularized by GE. The savings from these high-payoff improvements can "fund" a more formal re-engineering project. Our formal approach to business process reengineering is depicted below.

Our philosophy is to work through your personnel to achieve commitment to the changes. We would typically start by conducting a Product Development Assessment using our structured assessment methodology. This gives us a basic understanding of the organization's development process and identifies the areas of greatest opportunities. We would work with management to determine the scope of the processes to be reengineered, develop a project plan, and identify project personnel. We would then conduct a brief workshop to introduce your process improvement teams to the business process reengineering methodology and supporting documentation methodologies such as IDEF0. We can take responsibility for documenting and analyzing business processes or we can train company personnel to document and analyze business processes. We would also suggest appropriate metrics and help to determine baseline process performance as well as measure subsequent improvement ( see Product Development Metrics).

We can facilitate the teams identify process shortcomings and investigate fixes and improvements. We can suggest improvements and approaches based on our experience assisting other companies improve their business processes. We can 1.) serve as a sounding board for the teams to discuss their ideas, 2.) provide an objective viewpoint to mediate differences of opinion, 3.) insure the teams are not unnecessarily placing constraints on themselves, 4.) champion the improvements in the face of organizational resistance, and 5.) insure the teams are going far enough with their process re-engineering/improvement efforts. We can assist the teams develop an implementation plan, conduct training, implement the improvements, and monitor the results. The improved results through our assistance will pay for itself many times over.

For further information, please contact:
Kenneth Crow
DRM Associates
2613 Via Olivera
Palos Verdes , CA 90274-2809, USA
Telephone: (310) 377-5569
Fax: (310) 377-1315
Email: kcrow@aol.com