DFM Thinking in Advanced Development Speeds a Product’s Time to Market

Advanced development (AD) is the "sandbox" between classical R&D and product development (PD). Engineers in AD typically mitigate risk on a technology released by R&D. Why does AD serve this intermediate activity? The output from R&D teams still needs a good bit of work to prove out its readiness for a production-ready development effort.

When the organization is on a product development track, the cost of failure is high. Delays can have a huge impact on a company's reputation, while cost overruns ripple through all facets of an organization. One way to maximize the value of the output from AD teams is to integrate design for manufacturing (DFM) planning into their work.

The Value of DFM Thinking

When the AD team considers how a technology can be transformed into a producible, cost-efficient, and high-value product, the PD team can rapidly convert AD's output into the final product. When the AD team has proved out manufacturability, the PD team will not need to step back into the concept; it can readily go into functional and producible design.

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When to Inject DFM Thinking?

AD teams typically start with the results of research that has a potential product goal. While the risk of failure is certainly higher and more tolerated in an AD team than a PD team, having a sense of how the technology will be converted into a manufacturable design helps reject or advance concepts toward product development. While AD's creative process should not be excessively restricted, the team's understanding of high-level goals of the product usage, cost, user needs, and volume targets enables its results to be used more efficiently downstream.

Enablers to DFM Thinking

While AD team members are often selected for their highly advanced technical competencies, it is helpful if they have been part of product development teams or even manufacturing engineering teams. This kind of experience gives the engineer or designer immersive exposure into the pressures and issues of delivering a manufacturable design. Without this experience in the AD process, AD staff members are likely viewed to be "throwing something over the wall" to PD teams. If AD team members are not deep in DFM thinking, giving them access (formally or informally) to team members in PD or manufacturing engineering can help them sanity-check their work and ensure that they are on the right path.

Bridging the Gap

One way to improve the readiness of advanced development work for product development downstream is the AD team leadership's engagement in understanding and establishing mid- and long-term strategic business goals. Having the AD team connected in this process means that it is more likely to be aligned with the organization's business unit. After all, there needs to be ROI on any technology produced.

Organizations are in business to create great products that delight customers and generate return. By being efficient in incorporating DFM thinking into the AD process, companies move on a faster track toward product development and product launch. The injection of design for manufacturability has the added benefit of sustaining a productive and collaborative relationship between AD teams and their internal customers in PD.

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Mitch Maiman is the president and co-founder of Intelligent Product Solutions (IPS), building on a vision of delivering a new model for software and hardware product development that integrates the full spectrum of design and engineering disciplines as a single-source solution.