DFSS compliments, not replaces, your product development process, providing tools,methods, and processes throughout product design to bring disruptive products to market.

Approximately 37% of all new product launches fail, making the understandingof why they fail imperative to reducing risk and improving organizational strategy.Products fail for many reasons due to factors like inadequate market analysis,product defects, high costs, and production problems. The seemingly endlessamount of data points that must be captured and synthesized to attain the truevoice of the customer (VOC) can be overwhelming and must drive every newpproduct development decision to give it a solid platform to launch from.

Enter more contemporary business-process methods, such as Design for Six Sigma (DFSS), thatsystematically capture VOC data, optimize product design, and launch products to meet customer needs.DFSS consists of a stepwise approach where customer needs are built directly into product solutionsbased on research and statistics to facilitate continuous improvement for existing processes and to createnew ones where none previously existed. This approach induces uncertainty for companies becausemeasurement and improvement are no longer executed after a procedure is in place, and may appear toccreate additional overhead in the beginning. However, implementing DFSS at the start will increase the SixSigma methodology’s effectiveness.

Insight

Design for Six SigmaSupply Chain’s Role in Creating Disruptive New Products

First, DFSS does not replace a company’s current productdevelopment process, but instead augments it by instituting a seriesof statistical tools to quantitatively enhance decision making andresults in an area historically considered more art than science.

Second, DFSS is not the sole responsibility of design or engineeringdepartments; the most effective new products are the result of cross-functional teams of customer research, design, engineering, supplychain, and manufacturing professionals that effectively balance allcustomer requirements.

Further, DFSS is similar to the traditional DMAIC (Design, Measure,Analyze, Improve, Control) Six Sigma process, but different as DMAICis reactive, detecting and resolving problems. DFSS is proactive,designing out problems before they occur.

Last, there is no single dominant methodology for DFSS, which oftencomplicates industry training and the communication needed toproperly implement DFSS.

Why Design for Six Sigma?DFSS is a systematic methodology for designing or redesigning newproducts that meet customer requirements while improving productprofitability by delivering the right product, at the right time, and theright cost. The methodology centers around the idea that if you designSix Sigma quality into a product, customers will be satisfied and yourcompany will benefit financially, increasing the probability that yournew pnew product will perform well in the market.

Six Sigma tools are integrated at the outset of product development toachieve Six Sigma performance, a defect rate of 3.4 defects per millionopportunities (DPMO), 99.9997% perfect in production. DFSS focusesheavily on customer analysis to design superior products, specificallythe transition of customer needs to process requirements whileminimizing defects, cost, and time. Typically, the DFSS methodologyppayoff is substantial and could produce a successful launch for a firstproduct or prolong company survival.

Ways to realize value now

1. DMAIC vs DFSS DMAIC is reactive, detecting and resolving problems, DFSS is proactive, designing out problems before they occur.

2. DFSS = BIG Culture Change DFSS can pose a much larger culture change than DMAIC due to the required cross-functional nature of DFSS.

3. Shorten Product Life Cycle Companies that shorten their product life cycle time often beat their competition to market and win greater sustainable market share as a result.

5. Benchmarking Early Key to Success Internal, competitive and functional benchmarking can play a vital role for supply chain to improve upon existing company processes and competitors.

4. Select a Method to Avoid Confusion Currently there are seven DFSS methodologies in wide-spread use. Pick between DMEDI, DMADV, DMADOV, DMCDOV, DCOV, DCCDI, and DMADIC to avoid confusion and streamline product development processes.

Innovation

Think BIG. To realize the full benefitsof DFSS, master the Six Sigma tools,ensure leadership invests in theculture change needed, and bring inexpert practitioners to institutionalizethe mindset and methodologychanges needed to supportchanges needed to supportsustainable DFSS.

Many myths surround product developmentmethodologies, DFSS included, which result inorganizations hesitating to leverage the tool.

Challenges

6. Conduct Measurement System Analysis (MSA) Six Sigma requires accurate measurements, so both an accurate and precise measurement system will ensure new products deliver on design promises.

7. Phase-Gate Review to Execute Process Establish a phase-gate review to designing and commercializing new products, one that is supported by leadership and cross-functional team members, to determine if the product has accomplished all required metrics to successfully exit the gate and advance to the next phase.

8. DFx Tools Have Compounding Benefits Parts that are Designed for Manufacturing (DFM) tend to cost less than Design for Cost (DFC) and are easier to assemble Design for Assembly (DFA), thus cross-functional team collaboration is key to realizing full DFx benefits.

9. Utilize Design of Experiment (DOE) to Solve Product Design Problems DOEs can be utilized to further optimize new product design and process challenges by identifying cause and eects relationships.

10. DFSS Scorecards Help Drive Results Scorecards provide a systematic way to set goals, predict results, calculate capability and identify gaps for new products.

Ways to realize value now

Step 1. Tailor Product Attributes to Customers Needs Conventional design processes rely on a series of assumptions about productfeatures that will sell. DFSS is different in that it asks the question “What willcustomers buy?” and summarizes the responses into a VOC. DFSS then identifieskey customer needs before starting the product’s design, then prioritizes andtranslates the top customer needs into design requirements. These key customerdesign requirements are Critical-to-Quality characteristics (CTQs) – the select fewmeasumeasurable characteristics essential to the specific part of the product that must bewithin statistical control to guarantee customer satisfaction. When collaboratingwith cross-functional team members, supply chain professionals can leverageoperations expertise and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) analysis to assist intranslating the VOC into CTQs. To further leverage the QFD analysis to developdisruptive products, project teams can follow on with a Kano Model to rank essentialand differentiating product attributes, VOC Table (VOCT) to record customer needsand context and context to better understand both explicit and implicit customer requirements,and House of Quality (HOQ) Tool, to focus the organization on CTQs.

Step 2. Use Statistical Analysis to Improve Design ConceptA DFSS tool called the Pugh Concept Selection Methodology is a scoring matrix toselect between alternative designs, which is executed most effectively when teammembers perform independently and then compare scoring results. Thedevelopment of the criteria (usually 10 total) is critical to include supply chain teammembers, outside of design and engineering, to properly incorporate product criteriasuch as cost, assembly, and ease of transport. Supply chain also plays a vital role inpproviding an alternative view point in independently scoring and ranking designconcept alternatives that consider criteria impacted by procurement, manufacturing,and distribution. Often after a Pugh Matrix is completed to select a design a Concept,FEMA is typically conducted on the leading concepts. Supply chain, specificallymanufacturing and quality professionals, can play a vital role in expediting ConceptFEMAs by quickly building process maps and identifying potential failure modes.Typically, the overall highest-ranked design may be inferior on certain criteria, likecost for instance, and pcost for instance, and procurement team members can frequently improve selectcost criteria in leading designs when involved early in product development.

Step 3. Optimize the Product by Designing for “X” Traditional product development completes a product design and then “throws itover the wall” either to procurement to quote with potential suppliers andmanufacturing, or to a contract manufacturer to figure out how to build it. Thisapproach leads to a limited number of suppliers able to quote a specific part orproduct as designed, increasing cost and manufacturing challenges due toexpensive design change requests. Involvement of supply chain in the productddevelopment process to assist with Designing for X (DFx), manufacturing, assembly,and service can dramatically improve quality, lower cost, and reduce time to market.There are many DFSS tools, such as Poka Yokes and Process Capability Studies,that can be utilized to design in quality to the assembly processes on day one. PokaYokes, when implemented into the design effectively, prevent the improper assemblyof products and prevent manufacturing processes, equipment, and tooling frombeing performed incorrectly. Supply chain teams are often in the best position torrequest, verify, and share with product development teams, suppliers’ availableprocess capabilities, Cp, Cpk, and Cr, which can quickly be incorporated into producttechnical specifications.

Solutions

© MMXVII IndustryStar Solutions LLC

William CraneFounder & CEOwilliam.crane@industrystar.com

Dr. Sime Curkovic, Ph.D.Director of Supply Chain Innovationsime.curkovic@industrystar.com

Tony LancioneDirector of Supply Chain Solutionstony.lancione@industrystar.com

Success at high-growth technology companies is a result of eective supply chain solutions. To learn how IndustryStar can help,email info@industrystar.com.

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Company OverviewAt IndustryStar we are a supply chain services and software technology companythat is passionate about partnering with high growth technology companies to bringinnovative and disruptive technologies to market that will have a positive impact onthe world.

Considering the overwhelming evidence that incorporating the DFSSmethodology into a company’s product development process leads tomore successful new products, why do more companies notimplement DFSS? As with Six Sigma, even more so with DFSS, it doesnot produce immediate results and the statistical tools may beintimidating to teams newer to the Six Sigma managementtechniques.techniques. The DFSS methodology provides the supporting data tomake decisions that are statistically founded and in a shorter amountof time, ultimately driving out cost while designing quality intoproducts.

DFSS offers proven tools, processes, and methodologies to enhancean organization’s existing product development practices. If properlyimplemented, DFSS can lead to superior product developmenteffectiveness and to outperforming the competition.

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Future ways to realize value

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