The formula for the moving average is:DESIGN STRATEGIES

<< The formula for the moving average is:Standardization, Mass Customization

The formula for the moving average is:Measuring Reliability, AVAILABILITY >>

Production and Operations Management MGT613

Lesson 13

We have covered certain important concepts like standardization and mass customization, through

which organizations as well as governments are able to address the requirements of a broad customer

population. It is important now to understand how design strategies are applied and how to differentiate

between product and service design. There are certain common features to both. An effective operations

manager should know both about goods and services. It is also important to understand that a good

design should address the issues relating to cost, performance and quality.

DESIGN STRATEGIES

Design strategies have one common characteristic, which is to achieve customer satisfaction, along with

reasonable profit in a way which does not go beyond the organizations manufacturing abilities. An

exaggerated example being that if an automobile car manufacturing organization's design department

decides to design a truck. This would probably mean testing the organizations manufacturing capability,

as the organization would not be have the infrastructure to manufacture a truck.

Some of the common design strategies are

1. Design for Manufacturing (DFM): The designers' consideration of the organization's

manufacturing capabilities when designing a product. The more general term design for

operations encompasses services as well as manufacturing. Manufacturability is the ease of

fabrication and/or assembly which is important for:

i. Cost

ii. Productivity

iii. Quality

2. Design for Assembly (DFA): Design focuses on reducing the number of parts in a product and

on assembly methods and sequence.

3. Design for Disassembly (DFD): Design focuses on facilitating the disassembly in a logical and

an exact reverse sequential manner to the assembly methods and sequence.

4. Design for Recycling (DFR) : Design allows and facilitates the recovery of material of materials

and components from used products for reuse. The designers' consideration of the

organization's manufacturing capabilities when designing a product. The more general term

design for operations encompasses services as well as manufacturing.

5. Design for Remanufacturing: Using some of the components of the old products in the

manufacture of new products. Remanufactured products are sold at 30 to 50% of the price of

new product .e.g. Printers, copiers, cameras, PCs and Cell/Telephones. This can be done by

original equipment manufacturer or a competitor or end user ( in the latter case its called

cannibalization)

It is important now to learn as an Operations Manager the concept of Recycling. Recycling is in simple

words recovering materials for future use. The common recycling reasons are

Cost savings

Environment concerns

Environment regulations

Design for recycling is a design strategy that facilitates the recovery of materials and components of old

products in the manufacture/assembly of new products. The focus here is to design components that

would allow for disassembly and reuse or even CANABALIZATION.

Robust Design

Robust Design: Design that results in products or services that can function over a broad range of

conditions. The idea is to have consistent, safe and reliable operations with no excuse for environmental

characteristics. E.g. Automobiles/Products produced for European conditions may not perform well in

Pakistan because of different environmental conditions. Similarly if you happen to visit an industrial

Production and Operations Management MGT613

area, please make sure that you have a proper OSHA standard safety boot available to you. In Pakistan

certain automobile manufacturers do not comply with the safety boot requirements for all its workers

working at the assembly plants. A non OSHA compliant safety boot can probably cause more harm

resulting in foot amputation etc.

Taguchi Approach To Robust Design

Genichi Taguchi, a Japanese Manufacturing Engineer pioneered and championed the concept of

reduction in the variability factor in manufacturing process. His approach helped manufacturing

organizations to isolate and eliminate waste. This approach resulted in quality improvement and cost

reduction.

With the aid of the Taguchi Approach we can determine the factors that are controllable and those not

controllable along with their optimal levels relative to major product advances.

The defining characteristics for the Taguchi approach include:

Design a robust product

Insensitive to environmental factors either in manufacturing or in use.

Central feature is Parameter Design.

An added concept to Taguchi Approach is the Degree of Newness. Degree of newness is an incremental

enhancement of certain quality based performance features for the product. The various ways in which

degrees of newness can be achieve include

1. Modification of an existing product/service

2. Expansion of an existing product/service

3. Clone of a competitor's product/service

4. New product/service

5. Degree of Design Change

Phases in Product Development Process

A manufacturing organization when carrying out design of a product goes through the following phases.

Idea generation

Feasibility analysis

Product specifications

Process specifications

Prototype development

Design review

Market test

Product introduction

Follow-up evaluation

Idea Generation often captures what we have already discussed as reverse engineering. Reverse

engineering is the dismantling and inspecting of a competitor's product (or any other manufacturers old

or existing product) to discover product improvements.

Research & Development (R&D) is the organized efforts to increase scientific knowledge or product

innovation & may involve:

Basic Research advances knowledge about a subject without near-term expectations of

commercial applications.

Applied Research achieves commercial applications.

Development converts results of applied research into commercial applications.

Production and Operations Management MGT613

Concurrent Engineering

Concurrent engineering is the bringing together of engineering design and manufacturing personnel

early in the design phase.

Concurrent Engineering Advantages

Manufacturing Personnel are able to identify production capabilities and capacities .They have thus

the opportunity to inform the design group about the suitability of certain materials on the flipsides

the designer would know the suitability of certain designs in aiding in cost reduction and quality

improvement in production/assembly process.

Early opportunities for design or procurement of critical tooling, some of which might have long

lead times. This can result in a major shortening of the product development process, which should

be a key competitive advantage.

Early consideration of the Technical Feasibility of a particular design or a portion of a design. Again

this can avoid serious problems during production. The emphasis can be on problem resolution

instead of conflict resolution.

Concurrent Engineering Disadvantages

Long standing existing boundaries between design and manufacturing can be difficult to

overcome. Simply bringing a group of people together and thinking that they will be able to

work together effectively is probably naïve.

There must be extra communication and flexibility if the process is to work, and these can be

difficult to achieve.

Computer-Aided Design

Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is product design using computer graphics.

increases productivity of designers, 3 to 10 times

creates a database for manufacturing information on product specifications

provides possibility of engineering and cost analysis on proposed designs

Modular Design

Modular design is a form of standardization in which component parts are subdivided into modules that

are easily replaced or interchanged. It allows:

Easier diagnosis and remedy of failures

Easier repair and replacement

Simplification of manufacturing and assembly

A concept idolized in the IT industry for software development

Service Design

Service is an act and service delivery system focuses on facilities, processes and skills.

Many services are bundled with products, like oil change would require you to pay for the oil canister as

well. A good service design involves

The physical resources needed which are somewhat Explicit Services

The goods that are purchased or consumed by the customer which are the services that we

call the implicit services

Operations Manager should be aware of the fact that service is something that is done to or for a

customer and service delivery system are the required facilities, processes, and skills needed to provide

a service, also the words used are product bundle and service package. We should know that the product

bundle is the combination of goods and services provided to a customer and service package is the

physical resources needed to perform the service

Production and Operations Management MGT613

Good Service Spectrum

Operations Managers often end up answering whether a certain activity falls under product

manufacturing or service development. The figure below tries to capture the concept of the whole

spectrum/band of Goods and Services. The spectrum or band has on Y axis the control on goods and on

X axis the control on services.

This is to help understand how a purely manufacturing organization would handle a services assignment

as well as how the operations manager would effectively handle both products as well as services.

Steel Production

Automobile Manufacturing

Auto/Appliance Repair

Manual Car Wash

Teaching

Increasing

Goods Control

Service Content

Difference between Product and Service Design

1. Products are Tangible and generally services are intangible. Services give peace of mind which

is again an intangible thing.

2. Services are created and delivered at the same time, haircut, car wash. Services like these if not

properly designed are instantly discovered by the customers.

3. Services highly visible to customers and should be designed with that in mind. This adds an

extra dimension to process design, one that is absent in product design.

4. Services cannot be inventoried. This poses on restriction on flexibility and leads to an increased

importance in capacity design.

5. Location important to service design. In fact design of services and choice of location are often

closely linked.

6. Services have low barrier to entry. Some services (Non Information Technology BASED) have

lower barriers to entry and exit. This places an additional pressure on service design to be

innovative and cost effective.

Phases in Service Design

Service Design process requires the thorough understanding of what the service should be and how it

should be delivered and that too with in certain standardized specifications or requirements.

Conceptualize

Identify service package components

Determine performance specifications

Translate performance specifications into design specifications

Translate design specifications into delivery specifications

Production and Operations Management MGT613

A good operations manager should be able to see the compatibility between design requirements for a

product or a service.

Service Blueprinting

Service blueprinting is a method used in service design to describe and analyze a proposed service. It is

a useful tool for conceptualizing a service delivery system

Major Steps in Service Blueprinting

1. Establish boundaries and decide on the level of detail that is needed.

2. Identify steps involved and describe them. If there is an existing process, get an input from

those who do it.

3. Prepare a flowchart of major process steps.

4. Identify potential failure points. Incorporate features that minimize the chances of failures.

5. Establish a time frame for service execution and estimate of variability in processing time

requirements. Time is a fundamental determinant of cost, so establishing a time standard for

service is important.

6. Analyze profitability. Customer waiting time is important, leading to negative profitability

Characteristics of Well Designed Service Systems

A well designed service system should be consistent with the organization's vision as well as mission. It

should be user friendly, robust, easy to sustain, cost effective and should bring value to customers.

A good and well design should create an effective linkage between back operations and front

operations. It should aim for a single unifying theme. It should ensure reliability and high quality.

An operations manager often faces challenge of a poor service design. The reasons of a poor service

design include variable requirements, difficult to describe requirements, high volume of customer

contact. These challenges can be overcome easily with the aid of defining a standardized requirement

that would be addressed by the service, make simpler requirements and handle only limited number of

customers at each service station or outlet.

The House of Quality

It makes a lot more sense to introduce the concept of quality in product and service design here. We

already know a superior product enjoys a broader customer base because of its superior quality.

Similarly a service is a customer encounter. A popular managerial view is that the Quality Function

should be deployed at the source or at the design stage. We also should know what Quality Function

Deployment is. Two common answers being that it is the voice of the customer (which always sets a

standard for the service organization to follow) and the second one being that it should be in the form of

a house of quality

Production and Operations Management MGT613

Correlation

matrix

Design

requirements

Customer

Relationshi

Competitive

require-

assessment

ments

Specification

Conclusion

How organization can improve their product or service design is based purely on how much they are

willing to invest in Research & Development(R &D). Organizations should shift some emphasis away

from short term performance to long term Performance. They should work towards continual and

gradual improvements instead of the big bang approach. This is clearly an example of Japanese

incremental modification approach to the contrasting American philosophy of introducing a different

model. Whatever may be the approach, a good design should aim to provide a reduced product life

cycle.

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