Avoid best practice?

Don Reinertsen, president of California-based product development consulting firm, Reinertsen & Associates, has strong, sometimes surprising, views on how manufacturing companies should be tackling their product development processes. “When it comes to developing new products, the idea of best practice is a seductive and dangerous trap. People stop thinking as soon as something is labelled as ‘best’. Such mindless behaviour is dangerous in a complex world.” Reinertsen’s beliefs stem from his vast knowledge and experience in the field of product design and development. He’s spent more than twenty years working with leading development organisations around the world and has done some of the best original thinking in his field. His 1983 work at McKinsey & Company, qualifying the value of development cycle time, helped pioneer the cycle time reduction movement. And he’s worked alongside leading management thinkers such as Bob Waterman, co-author of ‘In search of Excellence.’ At 51 years of age, Reinertsen is a very forthright, persuasive individual with a clear vision of where companies should be focussing their efforts. He holds an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School and travels the globe speaking frequently to executive audiences about techniques and tools for shortening development cycles. The key to his Design Factory concept is linking every stage of a product’s development to the economics of the business, ie making profitable products. “The problem is we’re managing our development processes the way we used to manage our factories 50 years ago.” And he suggests that manufacturing philosophies like JIT (Just-in-Time) reflect a true systems approach to the design of manufacturing processes. “Unfortunately, little of this deeper JIT learning has been transferred into our development process design.” So what’s his solution? Before even thinking about IT systems to support your business processes, which he believes are essential enabling tools, Reinertsen believes that companies need to first adopt a totally different mindset. “Rather than focussing on strict, rigid rules and accepting the conventional notion that there are universal best practices for development processes, if companies analyse their design processes they’ll conclude that different contexts demand different process choices.” He cites the example of concurrent engineering approaches versus sequential product development. “Best practice tells us that sequential is bad, concurrent is good. Yet the reality is that while a concurrent process is very well suited to achieving development speed, a sequential process is generally better at minimising risk and controlling development expenses. Each is ‘best’ to achieve a certain objective.” Based on this thinking, Reinertsen has developed concepts and practical tools that can be applied by any company struggling to get new products to market. The result is a methodical approach that ensures companies continue to think about what they are doing and why, and helps them consistently focus on the key factors of performance, time, cost and expense in developing any product. And too often in companies, the product development process is left to engineers and designers. But Reinertsen stresses that, “The real objective for any product development process must be the same as any process within a company – to make a profit. So it’s an issue that should concern everyone in the organisation.” So how can IT help all this? Reinertsen believes it’s essential. “IT is a great enabling tool and can help reduce development process costs by automating tasks … but it’s really about a change of mindset first. It’s just as dangerous to give a person with the wrong mindset the right IT tools. Change the mindset first, then focus on finding the right IT to support this. “The IT software is available out there today. The problem is companies haven’t got a clear vision of where they want to go. Education is the key here … company resources are being allocated elsewhere and cost of IT is too often merely an excuse. “There’s little decision support at present for trade-offs,” he adds. “Software that can help design teams calculate the extra profit if they get their new product to market two weeks early is worth investing in. And how many designers can answer the question, ‘If my sub-assembly supplier is going to be two weeks late, shall I use supplier B who is 5% more costly, or stick with the original supplier?’” Reinertsen’s leaves us with one last thought: “Contrary to what most designers might tell you, they actually spend most of their time communicating with other departments in the organisation, not testing and analysing product models. So the question manufacturers have to ask themselves is ‘How do I optimise the IT to support this?’” For more details of Don Reinertsen events and his Design Factory concept, go to www.smallpiece.co.uk