Product Development is a key competitive factor
For a technology based company the Product Development Process is a critical factor both to satisfy the customer expectations - in terms of quality, reliability, time, costs - and to assure a sustainable competitive advantage, so as to achieve the company profitability targets.
4S has identified basic organizational and technical guidelines to set up a fast, innovative, structured and effective Product Development process.
The resulting benefits of this approach are:
- on-time products delivery during all the development process phases up to the product launch, fully satisfying the customer requirements
- reduction of the project risks to not achieve the quality, reliability, timing and cost targets
- product and process performance release phased with the customer or project planning.
Who is the client of these services
Any OEM and supplier that develops or manufactures mechanical or electric/electronic systems/components.
OEM: original equipment manufacturer
Services for Company Capability Improvement
4S provides the services listed hereafter to permanently structure the company product development process.
Maturity Level Appraisal
The Appraisal performed by 4S on the Product Development process gives a picture of the “as-is” situation versus the minimum requirements for a robust management process inside your Company.
The Maturity Level reference model used by 4S is tailored to your company organization and product line to identify the critical areas to be improved.
Company Process Development
On the basis of the results of the Maturity Level Appraisal 4S can help your Company to improve and manage the organization, the processes and the relevant methods crucial for product development with reference to best practices and standards.
4S has identified as basic organizational and technical guidelines to set up an effective Product Development Process the following:
- Customer front-end relationship
- Benchmarking
- Programme management
- Integration with all primary and support company processes
- Preventive approach
- Structured decision-making driven process
- Concurrent Engineering
- Suppliers partnership
- Product Modification Management
- Process KPI monitoring
- Knowledge management based on lesson learnt.
Company Process Audit
During the development of the Product Development process, 4S performs audits to monitor the implementation progress and propose corrective actions. The reference for the audits is the gaps identified in the Maturity Level Appraisal.
KPI monitoring is also continuously performed.
Personnel Training and Qualification
Training programs are performed by 4S to fill the gaps identified on the crucial Product Development activities, methods and tools to embed the best practices.
Services for Development of Products
4S can provide your Company with the services listed hereafter aimed to support the development of a product in a specific project.
The approach is a co-operation with your Company, possibly based on 4S experts collocated at the Company premises, assisting your technicians to maximize the know-how transfer to your Company for long term added value.
Application Support
4S cooperates with your Company to define, develop and monitor the Product Development Program for a specific product.
The principal tasks are:
- Target setting and deployment
- KPI identification and monitoring
- Functional Analysis
- Prevention and validation plan (D/P FMEA, Tolerance Design, Computer Aided Engineering, Design of Experiments and testing, etc.)
- Suppliers capability evaluation and monitoring (see Suppliers Action Area)
- Reliability Program (see Product Reliability)
- Value Engineering
- Design for Manufacturing
- Design for Serviceability
- Design for environment compatibility (recycling, materials, energy, etc.)
- Product Functional Safety (if required, see Functional Safety)
- RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) program (if required)
- Risk Management
- Identification and approval of the deliverables related to the milestones
- Design reviews.
Performance Assessment
Performance Assessment is a complete evaluation by 4S of the Product Development process, activities and results related to a project for a specific product.
Project Management
4S helps you to define and manage a complete Product Development Program, including the related working groups (Design/Process FMEA, problem solving, etc.).
Testing Management
4S can define effective and optimized test plans required for product verification and validation.
Products: software tools
4S can provide customer tailored software tools to manage Product Development tasks for specific industry sectors, including Target Setting and Deployment, Prevention and Validation Plans, Reliability Test Plans and Data Analysis.