Here's my two cents on product design: It's not a standalone function, but rather an integral part of a product-centric approach to the four major phases of a product's lifecycle, which include create, build, support/sustain, and dispose.
This product-centric approach is embodied in the concept of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), and, in my view, is a critical discipline for engineers to embrace if they want to keep their jobs. As defined in my seminal book, Product Lifecycle Management: Driving the Next Generation of Lean Thinking (McGraw-Hill, 2006), and slightly modified in my next, soon-to-be released book, Virtually Perfect), PLM is:
An integrated information-driven approach comprised of people, processes/practices, and technology to all aspects of the product life to also aspects of the product life and its environment, from its design to manufacture, deployment and maintenance -- culminating in products removal from service and final disposal.
To put it in less academic terms, my premise is that we need to move from a siloed, functional perspective, where designers and engineers create a product design and throw it over the wall to manufacturing, which then tries to figure out how to build it. Manufacturing then tosses it over the wall to the product user. The product user has to hope that the product will actually perform the functions that he or she needs, and the product user has to sustain the product in a functional state throughout its life. While this siloed, fragmented approach has produced products with the required functionality, in today’s resource-constrained environment, this approach is too inefficient, too costly, and far too time-consuming.
My premise behind PLM is that by taking a product-centric, information-driven approach to the product lifecycle, we can produce better and more innovative products using fewer resources in less time. My ideal perspective of PLM is that we can virtually design the product, simulate its manufacture, and simulate and analyze the product's performance in the environment in which it is to operate. It is only when we work out all the issues virtually in product design, engineering, manufacturing, and performance and sustainment that then we go and build the physical version of the product. Granted, this is the ideal state, but we have been making amazing progress toward this ideal over the last decade.
The PLM approach generally resonates well. However, there is the occasional skeptic. A few years back, I addressed the senior leadership group of a major organization. After I finished my presentation on PLM, a hand shot up from the audience and a senior engineer said, “Dr. Grieves, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m the kind of person who feels more comfortable with blueprints. I need to go out and build prototypes so that I can see what my designs are going to do. I also really don’t have time to deal with the manufacturing guys. Manufacturing my designs is really their problem.”
My response: “Clearly, we have successfully created products that way in the past. However, there are going to be other senior engineers who are going to design products as good if not better using models, simulate the product’s performance, and work with manufacturing to simulate its production. Their products will be created with less resources, take less time to bring to market, be more efficient to manufacture, and be easier to support.”
"Why aren't more companies further along the path?" Several factors come into play. PLM tool maturity and legacy programs are two big drivers. From my perspective, the PLM toolsets have only recently begun to look to be capable to truly manage the product data across the entire lifecycle. That said, many companies have been trying to use the capabilities that have been out there for the past 10-15 years, though they were limited by tool capability in just how far they could extend the PLM environment. Additionally, they likely customized what was available to make it work for them, potentially making backwards-compatibility more difficult. Because of that effort to date, it's more challenging to move to new tools and processes if your product lifecycles are lengthy - it can be cost-prohibitive to change PLM toolsets mid-program, and they may not be easily backward-compatible. Long product lifecycles therefore limit the opportunity to move to the new tools and processes, assuming you can justify their development and implementation expense for use on a new program, whenever those come along. If new programs don't come along very often, then you may not have the opportunity for the transformational-type of change that today's highly integrated PLM toolsets offer. If you have a new program start and the capital to invest in the IT and process development to leverage the integrated PLM tool capability, then a company definitely should take the leap - it's where we need to go...
You are correct. My position is that, without PLM, Design for the Environment (DfE) initatives make companies feel good but are wasted efforts. If the information about how the product was designed to be disposed of is not available decades or even a century from now when the product comes out of service, the product will simply be sent to a landfill.
Since the responsibility for environmental compliance has settled onto the shoulders of design engineers, a view toward PLM has become a necessity. The design process now has to include a view from conception through -- ultimately -- product disposal -- and everything in-between.
I agree, the PLM design approach is the way to go. In my ideal design process, all the relevant parties gather all the requirements in the beginning. Then all the concepts from all the parties are gathered and explored like an upside down pyramid, narrowing down the choices to one or two. Then the machine is designed, built, and tested...
This view of product development seems to be echoed by pundits and vendors and even the largest product producers in all of the major industry sectors, and the PLM sector is enjoying strong growth, which would indicate support for this vision.
Nevertheless, even though we now have the technology to support these practices, it's surprising how many companies are still so early on in this transition. It seems like a no-brainer for manufacturers to embrace core PLM concepts around developing and verifying product designs in the virtual world along with taking a product-centric, information-driven approach as opposed to siloed development groups. Why aren't more companies further along the path?
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