PHASE 5: RAMP-UP AND WRAP-UP
5.2. Conclusions
The product development process was carried out from Phase 0 through Phase 4.
Throughout the process, the required design considerations in the areas of lean manufacturing and cost were included. The product experienced initial formulations as well as market research and customer definition in the first two phases, Phase 0 and Phase 1, of the product development process. Then, in Phase 2, the product was designed, prototyped, changed, and re-prototyped several times in an effort to achieve the optimal design that met the customer demands. In Phase 3, the SS&T had a final design and a tentative process layout as well as costing estimations to take into account when moving toward production of the product, especially with regard as to whether to rent or buy the necessary equipment. Finally, production trials began with Phase 4, and iterations of layouts and process flows were studied and tested in an effort to eliminate the seven wastes of lean manufacturing. At the close of Phase 4, cost was considered again, and the costs were compared to the costing estimates from Phase 3 of the process.
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The effectiveness of lean manufacturing was proved at several points during the course of this project. Five of the seven lean manufacturing wastes were addressed over the course of the product development process: transport, motion, waiting, inventory, and overproduction.
Transport waste was eliminated with the implementation of Layout B, which removed several pieces of equipment from Layout A, and with outsourcing precutting the large sheets of plywood before the beginning production, which eliminated the need for a second operator to help transport the plywood to the panel saw. Motion and waiting wastes were both addressed at several points during the product development process, especially in Phase 4 when the production layout and process flows were being finalized. Motion waste was eliminated in standardizing the handling of the unit by defining processes and using fixtures in an effort to reduce the amount of flipping and re-handling. Additionally, the fixtures added to the assembly process eliminated the motion of a second operator entirely as they enabled one operator to perform the assembly operation alone. Changeover times and unnecessary processes were also eliminated wherever they could be, as with the change from using the table saw to using the panel saw to cut each unit’s panels or the removal of the belt sander originally used in Layout A. Waiting waste was eliminated with the realignment of the operator processes to create a rhythmic process flow that passed from one operator to the other as seamlessly as possible. Additionally, handover points were added between the operators in case problems occurred that affected the synchronization of the processes.
Alternately, inventory and overproduction wastes were not directly addressed or eliminated over the course of the project. Instead, inventory waste was discussed as a concern in areas such as the 24-hour drying times for the polyurethane and the wood glue, which may require inventories of material to keep up with customer demand, and excess inventory resulting from the takt time being greater than each operator’s time in the final process flow and layout.
Overproduction waste was discussed in terms of the takt time and the necessity of ensuring that
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either each operator time met the takt time or that the hours worked by the operators was adjusted to result in the assigned customer demand.
The product development process for the SS&T led to a viable product which could move forward to the production ramp-up stage, pending the final design review which acts as a gate between Phase 4 and Phase 5, using the design, product layout, and process flow created over the course of this design project.
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