Managing New Product and Process Development by Kim B. Clark & Steven C. Wheelwright

Author:Kim B. Clark & Steven C. Wheelwright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Free Press

Attitudes Toward Integration

The effective deployment of upstream and downstream skills and capabilities in achieving integrated problem solving depends on fundamental attitudes that affect the relationship between upstream and downstream groups. People in the upstream group, for example, must be willing to share early preliminary information with their downstream colleagues. A perfectionist mentality, an attitude of “I won’t give you anything now, because I know I’ll have to change it later and I know that I will take the blame for it,” is anathema to integrated problem solving. Likewise, people in the downstream must be willing to take risks based on their best forecast of the future. They must be comfortable in a very ambiguous environment. A “wait and see” attitude, an attitude of “don’t talk to me until you are absolutely sure the design is done,” may appear to minimize the risks of change, but is in fact a cultural obstacle to effective integration.

A sense of mutual trust and joint responsibility is essential to integrated problem solving. Once product engineers have worked hard to reduce unnecessary changes, they must trust the manufacturing process group’s willingness and ability to cope with the changes that might emerge in the course of development. If process engineers trust product engineers to help them overcome manufacturing difficulties, they will be more willing and more capable to get a flying start.

Mutual trust hinges on mutual commitment to one another’s success. Without such commitment engineers are less likely to expose themselves to the personal risks inherent in integrated problem solving. And there are risks. Integration requires that engineers in the upstream and downstream let their colleagues see what actually goes on in their respective departments. It exposes weaknesses and mistakes and makes clear the limits of their ability much more than does the sequential batch mode of operation.

Effective integration is also built on shared responsibility for the results of upstream-downstream collaboration. Where integrated problem solving prevails, the objective of the upstream group can not simply be a completed design, nor can the downstream group focus its attention solely on a well-conceived set of tools or processes. Both groups must recognize that the objective is a high-quality, low-cost part that fits well with other parts under development, that comes off the production line at commercial volume levels with the styling, surface finish, cost, and structural integrity to satisfy customer expectations, and that is available for the targeted market introduction. This is a very complex objective that neither the upstream nor the downstream group completely controls. In order to achieve the objective, therefore, there must be joint responsibility for joint output.

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