Project Priority Examples

Analysis: Why aren't our products successful anymore?

This was an analysis I presented at a strategic meeting for a company. They had been able to launch successful products in the past, but more recent off the shelf products were late to market and not very attractive to customers. They could no longer do what they used to do. Using this method, what I found is to the right.

The company had been working on improving the company's performance in Specification compliance and Process completeness and adherence. While these are critical to customers contracting custom equipment, customers buying off the shelf hardware and software are looking for a good Recurring Cost/Technical Performance ratio, or performing in their environment without modification (or with an inexpensive mod).

For instance, new products were being exactly verified at one performance point, rather than exhaustively surveyed at many. Recurring cost was not controlled and poorly defined, leading to very conservative or even unknown eventual pricing. The new products were not designed to meet a cost, rather, the cost was determined once the build was complete.

This was as a result of a purposeful emphasis on two characteristics, at the expense of the others. Design to cost and methods to emphasize product performance and flexibility would have to be implemented to re-enable successful standard products.

Mismatch: Our Company is Not Right for This Opportunity

This is an example of a company's strengths not matching the expectations of the customer. This proposal was stuck, why? We could do it technically, why can't we get off the dime? Based on the results of the analysis to the right, we would have little chance of performing on this contract without major changes to our corporate culture. It was a bad fit, priority wise.

This was an opportunity for a hand held cash register, to replace counter top units. The counter top units cost about $2000. Analysis showed that 4 handhelds could replace one counter top unit. Of course, you would need spares and batteries, handhelds are much more subject to damage and loss, so all that had to be figured in. The customer knew all the numbers very well, and told us exactly what the units had to do, and cost, to replace their counter top units. So essentially, the winning proposal was written for us. We just had to agree we could do it.

We were technically qualified, we had done many handhelds. Most were industrial, and did not have the hard cost controls of this program. Analysis of the situation is below.

Customer:

• • Specification Well Established - cash registers do what they do, and theft prevention is very rigid.

  • Recurring Cost for product success well established – can't go forward until recurring cost bogie is met. Keep working until we get there.

  • High Performance not critical – function fixed, communication speeds are very low. Operator can look down, needs to be held in hand, last 8 hours during life - not difficult.

Company Strengths:

• • Good value products - high performance for reasonable cost

  • Can turn out modifications of standard products very quickly

  • Top designers could be diverted from standard product designs

As a company, we were set up to quickly modify a high performing product with a small team of engineers. We were not set up to do a lot of leg work on cost reduction, to meet a recurring cost goal. So for a while, the customer and us talked past each other.

Our company had one buyer, and part time help from another person, for about 15 active designs on average. Attention to recurring cost would have to be changed radically to satisfy this customer. The company I was at previously would have been better equipped to satisfy this customer for recurring cost. At that company, there were three very senior and hard working buyers for only about 6 active designs at one time.

Although depopulation for cost reduction was common (very schedule friendly), completely removing features to reduce the cost of printed wiring boards and connectors was not typically done. It would be essential to this effort, and a new one to the company.

And working to a fixed specification was not a strength of a company that designs and fields standard boards. The strict verification would have been very new to the company.

So, even though we were technically qualified, would we/could we change the corporate culture to pursue this opportunity? The changes needed were identified, and were too massive. We let it drop, and returned to our core business.