Pete Cornish is a Senior Consultant with DRM Associates, a consulting and training firm focusing on helping companies improve their new product development process, and a Principal in PD-Trak Solutions, a firm providing NPD project portfolio management software. He is responsible for the development and support of the PD-Trak system. Pete has over thirty years of experience working with companies internationally on topics related to project management and product development. As a consultant, he specializes in helping companies define and improve their project execution process, plan and manage development projects, and measure their performance. He has conducted over 100 workshops and trained over 2,000 professionals and managers on subjects related to project management, product development and design for manufacturability. Pete has worked with companies in many industries including electronics, chemical, food, consumer, medical, industrial and service related industries. His design and development experience includes software development, RF/microwave circuits and systems, fiber optic components, and systems for telecommunications applications. His experience includes the following:
- Helped several organizations to develop and define improved product development processes, establish a stage/phase-gate process, improve their project management capabilities and implement portfolio and pipeline management processes.
- Guided and supported the implementation of a corporate-wide design for manufacturability initiative at Toro Company. This initiative covered design groups and plants in six locations. Pete helped plan the initiative, developed executive management support, addressed staffing issues, defined the DFM process, and conducted DFM workshops. He facilitated DFM reviews and identified DFM improvements to product and subassembly designs.
- Implemented the PD-Trak product management system at many companies in different industries including electronics, consumer, food, medical devices and industrial. In most cases he led the definition and configuration of their product development process, installed the PD-Trak software, and conducted training on the product development process, managing projects, resource management, gate reviews, and portfolio management.
- At Anritsu Corporation, he conducted an in-depth assessment of the NPD methodology in use and made recommendations through a series of management team workshops to redefine the NPD phase-gate process to improve overall effectiveness and quality. Developed an NPD process handbook. Developed training materials and trained >100 product development personnel in an interactive workshop environment. Developed project tracking tools to improve management visibility of project status. Established and led an NPD “core team” forum with the purpose of regularly reviewing the organization’s NPD effectiveness, identifying opportunities for improvement and making associated recommendations to the senior management team. Established metrics for measuring NPD performance. Assisted the organization through the process of achieving full ISO 9000 registration. Similar services were provided for four separate divisions of Anritsu Corporation during this four-year period: Microwave Measurements Division (Morgan Hill, CA), the European Measurements Division (UK), the Applied Technology Divisions (Richardson, TX) and the Telecom Division (Morgan Hill, CA).
- Developed a Corporate business plan structure for Anritsu that defined complimentary planning documents from the business team level up to the division level. Led a series of workshops aimed at assessing the business situation and defining the strategy for future success. Developed a complete set of business plans following the defined structure. Established a planning calendar to monitor the implementation of the plan and to keep the plan current.
- For Power-One Corporation, he provided implementation, configuration and training services associated with the deployment of PD-Trak software at Power-One’s new semiconductor division based in Morgan Hill, CA. As part of this effort, Pete worked with the management team to define a phase-gate process to manage next generation product development, enhancements to existing products, small maintenance projects and technology development projects; define task plans for each process type, based on best practices; define the gate review process; define documentation templates; assist the management team with initial portfolio and pipeline management analysis.
- Created specifications and developed a resource planning and management system for Peregrine Semiconductor to support pipeline management. This was used to balance resources and projects across multiple business units and better respond to customer needs.
- Developed and implemented a performance measurement system and dashboard system for Inphi Corporation, a semiconductor developer. Integrated a process costing system with an NPD project management system to support financial justification of a business case for a new product.
- At Harmonic Lightwaves, he set up a series of workshops to define a product development methodology (phase-gate process) for this start up. In addition to defining the phases and gates of the project lifecycle, phase deliverable checklists and standardized document templates were developed to help guide the development teams based on best practices knowledge from previous projects. Developed and implemented a training program and on-line support tools.
- Developed instructor-led and online training programs to teach principles of effective New Product Development (NPD) and project management. Led NPD and project management workshops in various locations in the US and abroad.
- Developed the PD-Trak software tools designed to help project teams manage their projects effectively while providing management with the information necessary to manage the overall portfolio of projects within their organization.
Pete received a BSEE degree with honors from the University of Bath, UK in 1978.