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Product Development-167
The Situation:
A leader in the manufacturing, installation and service of elevators was faced with long product development lifecycles, under performing new products, and rising manufacturing, installation, and service costs. The Highland Group was asked to assist the client in developing a product development lifecycle, cut their time to market, and reduce their current operating costs.
The Driver Goal:
- Instill a new product development and customer service culture
- Take steps to achieve market gain of 5% over the next three years. Specifically:
- Cut product development cycle time in half
- More focus on developing new products
- Improve profitability by 1% of sales per year through cost reduction for current products
Actions Taken:
- Developed and implemented a project gating process for new product development
- Developed and implemented a strategic and financial filtering process to support product strategy and innovation
- Designed and implemented an enhance project idea evaluation methodology
- Designed and implemented a resource rationalization model to schedule product development resources
- Re-engineered critical high cost processes associated with bill of material preparation, installation, delivery, warranty, bill of material preparation
The Results:
- Installed a new product development methodology
- Installed a new product evaluation methodology
- Reduced the product development lifecycle by more than 50%
- Improved profitability by 2% of sales per year
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