Design Agility: Increasing your Ability to Adapt to Change

By BARB SCHMITZ | Published: DEC 13, 2011

One of the most prominent trends in today’s markets is the reality that the customer is now king. Consumers are demanding ever more innovative products that are tailored specifically to their needs, dictating the types of features and functionality they require, and as a result, are driving the direction of many different types of products.

As the result, the ability to respond quickly to changes is key to surviving in today’s turbulent and competitive markets, whether you’re making cars, cell phones or other consumer products. Bottom line: Product design today must be agile, iterative, and flexible. Manufacturers must strive to offer greater product customization or variety, but continue to keep unit costs low.

Another factor that increases the need for design agility is the prevalence of collaborative design. Product design now requires input from many divergent groups within a company, including sales and marketing, logistics, accounting and finance, manufacturing, engineering, Quality, and possibly even customers and suppliers. These collaborative team members weigh in and offer input throughout all the various stages of design—from concept through to production—so the ability to respond to change requests quickly, nimbly and continuously is essential.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” –Charles Darwin

Design agility, by definition, is a manufacturer’s ability to react quickly to sudden, unpredicted changes in customer demands or market changes for products. Flexibility is essential to respond to changes that are inevitable during the development cycle as customers change their minds, markets shift, and new technologies arise. Design agility requires that manufacturers design products that can either be quickly evolved or can be customized to meet customers’ specified requirements and changes in the market.

Companies can increase their ability to respond to such changes in product requirements bydeveloping families of products (often referred to as product platforms) that are designed for modularity and reconfigurability. These modular product structures enable manufacturers to adapt a product late in the design cycle or in manufacturing—or even in distribution—to better suit the needs of an individual consumer with as little disruption as possible.

By doing so, they are better able to quickly respond to changing market conditions or customer requests by making slight modifications to base or modular designs to create newly customized products. Manufacturers also need to be able to reconfigure processes or systems to accommodate sudden changes in product designs.

Product development processes can decrease flexibility

Many strategies put in place to foster product innovation may actually thwart manufacturers’ efforts to increase design agility. Phased product development processes that emphasize heavy up-front planning coupled with established project management methodologies promote an organized plan-your-work, work-your-plan approach to product design.

At the beginning, the project has complete flexibility but by the end of the initial planning or concept phase, the project budget, schedule and product requirements (design intent) are established and approved. From here on, the design process has restricted flexibility. While these approaches have their advantages, they can also make it difficult to make changes midstream in development.

While last-minute design changes are inevitable, this staged approach requires designers and engineering to anticipate what those changes might be during the planning phase. While this approach keeps design projects on schedule and within budget, it can also hamper the design team’s ability to deal with design changes as they arise, which can often be later in the design cycle.

Parametric modelers can facilitate design agility by making it easier to deal with last-minute product changes. When designs are created in a history-based parametric CAD system, the user can make a requested change, and then leverage the model’s parametric interdependencies to propagate changes throughout the rest of the model. If, however, the user making the change doesn’t understand the underlying model structure or if the change lies outside the tolerable parametric ranges, issues can arise. Often this requires engineers to start from scratch.

Direct modeling systems can make it much easier to deal with these last-minute design changes. With direct modelers, users can make changes to the model at any time, though design intent can be lost. A hybrid approach that utilizes both parametric and direct modeling tools can help design teams by providing them with flexibility and the design intelligence provided by parametric interdependencies.

Creo Customer Q&A: Concept Design and Direct Modeling

By LINDSEY CHRISTENSEN | Published: JAN 11, 2012

RKS Design is consistently recognized as one of the top 10 industrial design firms in North America. I posted previously that VP and Creative Director, Lance Hussey, was to present in a webinar entitled Top Tips for Selecting Concept Design Software. Lance explains some cool real-world examples of innovative designs from RKS and how they came to be.

At end of the live event we received some great questions from the audience which were fielded to Lance as well as Creo’s Technical Sales Manager, Paul Hamilton.  For your reading enjoyment, the live Q&A transcript:

Q&A with Lance Hussey of RKS and Paul Hamilton of PTC

Q: Why do you believe direct modeling is a better approach than others duringconcept design?

LH: For our process, when we need to have the flexibility to change and go in different directions while trying to come up with something, direct modeling is fast.  History-based modeling is great, it has its place, it’s just a different type of tool. But because we really move around a lot on the map, in terms of being able to change and modify things, direct modeling is how we’re able to develop fast. It’s been a huge advantage in terms of the overall process.  Designers can come in and be comfortable enough to use it because they don’t have to understand the knowledge of how everything fits together and fight processes- they can just go create as they think through it.

Q: Do you use other tools like sketching or rendering during concept design?

LH: Absolutely, there is no replacement for hand sketching, we do that all the time. We also use Illustrator and similar programs that help us visualize before we go to 3D. But when there are tight time cycles or when concepts are hard to understand but simple enough to do in 3D, it’s an advantage to be able to do that.  I find that with direct modeling, you can net out a 3D concept in about the same time as a 2D concept, just depending on the level of detail.

Q: Is it important to also manage and keep track of the designs clients don’t pick?

LH: Yes, I think that is a very good question- What happens to the bandwidth of designs? If only one goes forward, what happens with the others?  Yes, I think that what can happen, especially with product development, is that sometimes those designs need to be looked at when similar challenges occur in the future.  It’s important to reconsider them and understand what might be their benefits and even apply those designs to unrelated products. We usually keep them in the database.

Q: How many design alternatives do you typically explore during concept design?

LH: It varies quite a bit.  For some projects it might be 3 alternatives and other times it could be 20. It depends on the type of project and expectation level of the client.  But typically we do 3-5 and narrow that down to 2 or 1. Sometimes you need to explore more options and whittle that down- so you make more in 3D before you narrow it down and develop further.

Q: Are you following any phase gate design process to design? If so, can you share your process or ideas for faster turnaround design from concept until production?

LH:  Yea, we use the classic design cycle. We do preliminary design with review points then decide how to move forward with selection.  It is a phased approach prior to strategy and research which then gets integrated in. The nice thing about our team is that a number of the designers are involved in the strategy and research.  This is really valuable when we’re translating that knowledge and data into either assets to provide our clients and/or the designs themselves.  We have a nice waterfall flow of what happens in strategy and research then going into the classic design cycles.

Q: Is direct modeling useful beyond concept design?

PH: Good question.  There are a few key characteristics of direct modeling that lend it very useful in a variety of areas of product development.  Certainly there are companies that use it from art to part. Some characteristics like those Lance mentioned make it especially fast. If you think about geometry and validating that geometry as quickly as possible there’s just nothing faster.

There’s also the flexibility that Lance talked about- the ability to interact with geometry regardless of how it was created or where it was created.  And when we’re working directly with geometry (as with direct modeling) you can interact with it from any source. It doesn’t matter what CAD tool it was created in, doesn’t matter how it was created- it’s geometry.  And geometry is the master document with direct modeling. As such, concept design is a great place to utilize direct modeling.

Direct is also great if you have to go through a bid proposal process. If you need to generate geometry and quickly validate it for proposals, nothing’s faster than direct modeling.

Another area we see companies utilizing direct for is preparing a model for the analysis process, maybe simplification and defeaturing for FEA. Companies may want to extract the negative space for computational fluid dynamics, things like that.  So there are a variety of areas where you can use direct modeling and it will add value in your process.

Check out the recorded webinar which is now on-demand.

Creo LinkedIn Group Weighs in on Paper to Digital

By LINDSEY CHRISTENSEN | Published: FEB 24, 2012

I recently posed a question to the Creo group on LinkedIn and it sparked some interesting feedback (to say the least!).  Feel free to head over and see the full thread (you will have to join the Creo group if not already a member) and hey, why don’t you add to the conversation while you’re there!  For now, here are some of the highlights.

My original post was:

When do YOU move from paper to digital?

Do you create early concepts with pens/pencils or with digital tools? If you start with a physical drawing, when do you recreate your designs in a software application? In a recent study, we found that 34% of users were creating concepts on paper, but we’re curious to know at what stage in the concepting process YOU make the leap to a digital tool.

Some of the responses include:

Paper is easily accessible… ideas go right into paper, napkins, tissues, on a drawing board, then digital pens to the computers.

Most of the time I start on a blackboard or on paper, because it is easier to get a “better picture” faster and share with everyone in the office. After this rough design I go to the digital. I only start with digital design when I am pretty sure what I am going to do from the start. So that means that I already had a similar experience on another project, or it is a concept that I can´t change.

I consider myself a newbie in 3D-CAD modeling and I used to work only with free hand sketches for my simple designs. But today, after I bought a 3D-Printer I am moving to CAD ASAP.  For me – being able to manufacture the design with few mouse clicks is a great motivator for using CAD.

The ideas come first on paper. Adding the right dimensions to the structure comes with CAD, calculating for strength and so on is so much easier with the CAD model.

Our thread also diverges from the main question at times which is fun.  A few people shared thoughts on designing digitally and capturing IP:

I would like to say we do, but that doesn´t happen. I would like to attach reference documents into windchill… but that´s not our standard right now. I hope we can start doing that one day.

The problem is the disconnect between engineering management, and the engineering tools now available. As people are resistant to change, and management has not taken the initiative to educate themselves as to what is now possible, I see that little will change. I have pushed for more digital documentation of designs and earlier involvement of downstream users of the digital data for many years. Unfortunately management has not understood the benefits to do so and rarely use the data for “lessons learned”. Until there is a greater emphasis on saving this data to be used in the future we will suffer from the age old problem of repeating history.

And I couldn’t help but probe for thoughts on Creo as it related to our discussion of paper vs digital concepting.  It resulted in my favorite comment thus far which I will close with here:

My philosophy for now is:
If it is easy to draw by hand, it will also be easy to draw in CREO
If it is complex to draw by hand, it will be easier to draw in CREO
If it is important, it must be drawn in CAD

ArnoldIT: PLM Takes the Checkered Flag

By ADMIN | Published: JAN 24, 2012

“Penske Racing uses Parametric Technology Corporation’s (PTC) Windchill PLM software along with CreoCAD software to help “the team and third-party collaborators work together to manage the engineering process from concept to completion.”  PLM is important to them because ’Whether work is being done in machine shops, at Penske’s Mooresville, North Carolina, racing facility, or at tracks around the country, the web-based business collaboration software helps Penske Racing manage, develop, and deliver the products created to enhance the team’s performance.”

Read the full article here.

Fostering Innovation Through Better Brainstorming

By BARB SCHMITZ | Published: JAN 23, 2012

Successful new products start with innovative ideas. Generating new ideas, however, is often a difficult endeavor for organizations mired in the complexities of product development today. How do you fit in freewheeling brainstorming sessions when more pressing concerns (regulatory compliance, increased competition, demand for increased customization,skyrocketing raw material costs, and shortened design cycles) seem to take precedence?

An article, “Seven Steps to Better Brainstorming” by McKinsey & Company gives organizations some easy steps to follow to encourage the generation of better, more innovative ideas in-house.  The consultancy has worked with over 150 companies in a range of industries to develop a pragmatic approach—they’ve dubbed “brainsteering”—that captures the energy typically lacking in traditional brainstorming sessions. The trick, the company says, is to leverage the way people actually think and work in creative problem-solving situations.

Let’s take a look at some of the best practices recommended in the article.

Know the decision-making criteria. Often ideas hatched during these sessions die a quiet death because they are beyond the scope of what the organization would be willing to consider. Start out these sessions by laying out the real criteria (limitations or restrictions) the company will use to make decisions about resulting ideas. For example, while a company might be interested in ideas for new products, ideas that would require new regulatory approvals would be a no-go, regardless of how innovative the idea was.

Ask the right questions. Use the “right” questions as the platform for idea generation. Questions should have two characteristics. One, they should force participants to take a new and unfamiliar perspective, therefore, shaking up their thinking and eliminating the chance they will focus on ideas that worked in the past. Secondly, the right question limits the conceptual space your team will explore, without being so restrictive that it forces particular answers or outcomes. Limit it to 15 to 20 such questions and choose the questions carefully as they form the heart of the session.

Pick the right team. Choose people who can answer the questions you’re asking, not based on where they are in the corporate organizational chart. Pick people with “in the trenches” knowledge. Keep the boss away as they often prevent people from expressing unproven, novel ideas. Also, avoid adding “big mouths” to the mix as they take up too much time espousing their opinions, intimidate the less confident, and give everyone else an excuse to be lazy.

Divide and conquer. Conduct multiple, discrete, highly focused sessions among subgroups of three to five people—no fewer, no more.  Each subgroup should focus on a single question for a full 30 minutes. Of the total 20 questions, each group should be given five questions each. Isolate “idea crushers” in their own subgroup. These include anyone who, intentionally or not, prevents others from sharing their opinions and ideas. Can include bosses, “big mouths,” and subject matter experts.

Set your expectations. Before you divide the group into subgroups, tell them what your expectations are and what they will—and won’t—accomplish. Prepare your participants for the likelihood that each subgroup might only generate two or three worthy ideas, which can help prevent them from getting discouraged.

Wrap it up. A typical subgroup will generate perhaps 15 interesting ideas that warrant further exploration. If you’re running multiple subgroups simultaneously, your 20-person team should collectively generate up to 60 ideas.

What now? Unlike in traditional brainstorming, you should not have the full group choose the best ideas from the pile, because attendees don’t have the executive-level understanding of the criteria and considerations that go into prioritizing ideas for actual investment. Instead, have each group narrow its own list of ideas to a top few and then share all of the leading ideas with the full group, even though they will not be picking the winning ideas.

Follow up quickly. Decisions and other follow-up activities should be quick and thorough, as the odds that action will result from a brainstorming session tend to decline as time passes. Be sure and communicate the results of the decisions quickly to everyone involved, even when an idea was rejected.

The article was adapted from a book, Brainsteering: A Better Approach to Breakthrough Ideas (HarperCollins, March 2011) written by Kevin and Shawn Coyne. Read Seven Steps to Better Brainstorming in its entirety on the McKinsey and Company web site.