It is possible to shorten the idea-to-launch time span for industrial products

The Industrial Agile Framework, developed by Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Hubert Smits and Peter Borsella, pulls together everything that’s needed to design and mass produce a product —beginning with an idea and including design, components, supplier considerations, manufacturing, and everything in between — to shorten the idea-to-launch time span for industrial products.

In the Cutter Consortium Executive Update “Twice the Product in Half the Time,” the pair explores why it takes so long (years, even decades!) to get a new product out of the manufacturing plant. Then they explain how an organization can apply Agile principles to physical product delivery to cut that time to delivery significantly.

According to Smits and Borsella, when you apply the Industrial Agile Framework, you can change directions while working on product development without having to go back to square one. And, as with Agile for software, inspecting early and makes it possible to find and fix problems before they become excessively costly.

In “Twice the Product in Half the Time,” Smits and Borsella point out the myths surrounding Agile product development, the commonly perceived causes of lost productivity and the common responses, which are often flawed to demystify the myths surrounding agile product development. The myths, and the Industrial Agile response to them are:

Myth 1: Maximizing People Utilization Gives the Most and Cheapest Output

• Perceived Cause: Our “resources” — people — are underutilized

• Flawed Response: A “full resource utilization” approach

• Industrial Agile Framework Response: Don’t focus on resource utilization; focus on availability. Each person should work on a single product delivery and be completely focused and available up to the delivery.

Myth 2: Large Batches Are Optimal

• Perceived Cause: We need to understand all the details before we can build anything
• Flawed Response: Create a phased delivery plan with large batches of work and long stretches of time
• Industrial Agile Framework Response: Deliver products in small steps, not as large projects. Accomplish as much in each small batch as the focused group of people (described in Myth 1) can deliver in two weeks.

Myth 3: Iterating Physical Product Delivery Is Not Possible

• Perceived Cause: Departments are not optimized for rapid delivery
• Flawed Response: Local optimization (not seeing “the whole”)
• Industrial Agile Framework Response: Don’t do local optimization by department; instead optimize the product delivery. Make sure all the people relevant for delivering the product into the hands of
  the customer are always engaged and are only focused on the delivery

Myth 4: Only the Most Complete Feature Set Will Do

• Perceived Cause: It is too expensive to build product versions
• Flawed Response: Every possible product feature will be implemented before the first launch
• Industrial Agile Framework Response: Again, don’t do local or
  step optimization, but instead deliver the small batch from each iteration ready for manufacturing. The outcome of each two-week iteration includes design, testing, materials, manufacturing steps, service manuals, and so on.

Myth 5: Detailed Management Is Needed to Guarantee Early
Delivery

• Perceived Cause: Lack of process and management will result in chaos
• Flawed Response: More process, more reports, and more
  checklists
• Industrial Agile Framework Response: Don’t use prescribed processes; use a light framework and the team the freedom to fill it in with the best practices. The delivery team can then decide what activities are necessary to deliver each small batch.

Myth 6: Agile Product Delivery Doesn’t Scale

• Perceived Cause: Only small teams can work in an iterative way
• Flawed Response: Doing more of the same process
• Industrial Agile Framework Response: Only add people to teams when inspections show the need to add a person.

In their piece, Smits and Borsella offer examples of companies that applied the framework to product development; they describe how the actions these organizations took saved rework and time; and they weave a running example — a new design for a high end, carbon fiber bike — into their piece, illustrating the principles of their framework.

The duo is presenting an webinar on Industrial Agile next week (Feb 6, 12pm EST). You can get more details and register here.

For more on Industrial Agile

Cutter Consortium Research: Cutter Consortium Members can read
Twice the Product in Half the Time and The Industrial Agile Framework: Scrum Is the Heart of a Future Lean-Agile Industrial Environment, both by Hubert Smits and Peter Borsella.

Register to attend the webinar, Industrial Agile: Accelerating Physical Product Delivery to learn more about the Industrial Agile Framework and ask Hubert Smits and Peter Borsella your questions.

from The Cutter Blog | Debate Online http://bit.ly/2UlUoRb
via https://ifttt.com/ IFTTT