Effective Engineering e-Newsletter – 1/6/2005
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eN-050106:
Sustaining
Engineering: The Care & Feeding of What You’ve Got
By
Tom Dennis – President, Effective Engineering [tdennis@effectiveeng.com]
You’ve
finished the long development process.
You’ve released your product to the market, and it is well received.
You’ve delivered quality in your product that you and all involved
can be proud of.
Congratulations!
So, are you now done?
Can you move on to other projects and put this one behind you?
Well … no!
If you expect that once your product is released that you can wash your
hands of it, you’re simply not facing reality.
There is much more that will need to be done to support and sustain
this product, and you need to understand this up front, so you can plan for
the ongoing sustaining engineering effort that will be required for this, or
any, product.
When your product gets released, unless it is a software product, it will
typically be released to manufacturing.
Now manufacturing may be internal to the company, or may be outsourced
to an external manufacturing facility.
Regardless, they will need to take your beautiful design and turn it
into a manufacturable product.
This means that they must thoroughly understand all of the elements of
the product, how each element will be built, how they will go together as an
assembled product, how they will be tested, both individually and together as
an assembled product, how the product will be programmed (assuming it contains
firmware or software), how the product will be packaged, how the product will
be shipped, and more.
If you think you can throw your product documentation over the wall to
manufacturing and a perfect product will come out the other end, think again.
The manufacturing folks will have questions, and you’re the only one
who can answer those questions.
Be prepared to spend time working with manufacturing engineers and
other manufacturing personnel to answer their questions.
Ideally, you will have been working with them throughout the
development process, so that design for manufacturability and assembly has
been incorporated from the outset.
Even if this is the case, you will still need to be involved in getting
the product through manufacturing and out the door.
Further, even after the product has been shipping for some time, things
change in manufacturing that will require your involvement.
Parts may be discontinued, firmware changes may be required, new
interfaces may need to be added, etc.
Remember, you own the product from cradle to grave; it’s your baby!
Next, simply because you have released your product, and you know it is a
thing of beauty, this does not mean that the world will beat a path to your
door. The
world needs to understand what the product is, why it’s a thing of beauty,
and how it will make their lives immensely better.
Marketing and Sales will handle some of this, and Education and
Training will handle more.
But guess what?
Who trains Marketing, Sales, Education, and Training?
Why, you do!
Depending upon their involvement throughout the development process,
the amount of effort that you’ll need to put in will vary, but clearly no
one understands your product better than you do, and in order for the product
to be positioned properly, to be presented properly, to be explained properly,
and to be used properly, you will need to be involved to ensure these tasks
are handled properly and that the product has the best opportunity to get
launched successfully.
Then, if things go well, the world may well beat a path to your door,
and your company will reach its key goal – to make money! (see eN-030522
– Keep Your Eyes on THE GOAL!”).
Once customers begin using your product, problems will arise.
Some may be due to “cockpit” problems where the customer simply
isn’t using the product the way it’s supposed to be used; once properly
explained, these problems often go away.
Other problems may be due to customers using the product in a way
that’s perfectly reasonable, but was just not a way that you had considered
in developing the product; here you have to see if you can find ways to
support the customer usage within the existing capabilities of the product.
Yet other problems may be due to the product simply not functioning the
way it is supposed to; here you need to dig in to find the root cause of the
problem and what needs to be done to fix it.
Sometimes, a simple fix will get the customer going again.
Other times, firmware or software can be updated to correct the
problems. Other
problems may require design changes that may ripple through hardware,
software, and physical design changes.
The only thing you can be sure of is that problems will arise, and,
while different levels of technical support may be able to handle some of the
problems, at some point you will need to get involved.
The fact that you are now deeply involved in the next exciting project
does not eliminate your responsibility for the performance of your already
existing products.
Again, you own them, at some level, from cradle to grave.
Assuming your product is a success, improvements and enhancements to your
products will be requested or even demanded.
Customers will like what your product does, but it would be so much
more useful if it also did something else, or did what it does in a slightly
different way.
You want to satisfy your customers, particularly larger customers who
are willing to commit to buying more product, but only if you can satisfy
their most pressing needs.
In the software world, this is why Release 1.0 goes to 2.0 goes to 3.0,
etc. You,
as the father/mother of this product, need to be involved in defining and
perhaps in developing these improvements and enhancements.
You know the architecture, the capabilities, and the limitations of the
design. You
can most quickly assess what can or cannot be done, and the various ways to
approach the improvements and enhancements.
Sometimes these needs arise shortly after the product has been
released, when the design is fresh in your mind.
Other times, these needs may arise long after product release and after
you’ve been involved in numerous other projects, and your memory of this
particular product is fading.
Nevertheless, you need to dig back into your memory banks to do
what’s required to address the customer need.
If the product is really successful, it may lead to building an entire product
family around your product.
In such a case, you may build an entire career around your original
product concept.
This can be a good to great thing for both you and your company.
In any event, your involvement will be required.
The bottom line is that the initial launch of a product is not the end, from a
developer’s perspective, but the beginning of a product’s life.
The product will need to be cared for and fed and nurtured throughout
its lifetime.
New product developments must clearly continue and are essential to a
company’s ongoing success.
However, the sustaining engineering effort required for existing
products should not be underestimated, and must be included in any planning
efforts
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2005
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