Advice on Better Product Development

The best way to predict a product's future is to simply create it. But predicting what will be a hit with the public takes more than just a consultation with a Ouija board - it also takes the advice of media developers, researchers, design engineers, merchandisers and model makers. While keeping this same group intact for the duration of a project can be like trying to herd cats or dribble a golf ball, a good product development company can be the magic ingredient that makes it all work.

Product development companies have been the invisible hand of manufacturing for many years, helping the multi-billion dollar industry design, build and market their wares. But not very much is known about this particular industry. To dispel some of the mystery, Time-Compression Technologies recently sat down with Curt Bailey, president of Sundberg-Ferar, to ask what he could tell our readers to help improve their own product development processes.

What advice can you offer our readers so that they can better improve their product development process?

Curt Bailey: I get this question all of the time from customers. They say 'what are you going to do to help us decrease our time-to-market because that's important to us.' Everyone says that, but not everyone has made an attempt to quantify that. That's the biggest problem. Very few people have really tried to quantify what six months really means. When someone says how can I speed up the process, I think what people are looking for is technical answers to speeding up the process - what kinds of tools you have in place, what type of rapid prototyping technologies do you have, what CAD systems you are tied into, and so on.

There are really only two reasons that projects get delayed. The first one is what I call the 'back to the drawing board syndrome,' which means that you develop this thing, you build it, and then it doesn't work. It's the more difficult of the two to deal with because you have this concept of this new technology and you're pretty confident its going to work and then you start to test it and then you have a catastrophic failure that sets you back.

The other and probably more prevalent one is a lack of ability to make decisions, which has nothing at all to do with technology. So, what I then ask is, what kinds of activities can we participate in during the course of doing this particular product development that will enhance our ability to make better decisions. The technical part is academic. Everyone knows how to use RP, everyone knows how to leverage CAD, everyone at some time has pulled an all-nighter, but you have to know what you are going to work on and you have to know how to make a decision because what happens is we will work, come up with a concept, deliver this great stuff, the company loves it and then it will sit for three weeks. It sits because they could not get their team back together to discuss what decisions were going to be made or they need to show it to some people who were not at the meeting. This takes forever. Those are the things that slow down the product development process.

Other factors creep in here too: client team members changing, one guy starts then six months down the road gets a promotion. Then, a new person comes in, does not necessarily believe in the process we designed for his company, second guesses everything and wants to change things based on their previous experience. In these cases you wind up starting all over again.

Make sure you keep the team together. For example, Ford Motor Company has employees sign a contract that locks them into that position for the duration of the project. They waive any move to another position in the company for duration of the project. They agree that for the next year they are committed to this project and willing to stay the course. That's an extremely powerful tool and not enough companies do it. Also, when you have meetings the right players are not there.

Market conditions change, which can throw a big wrench into the process. So, staying the course is important. Having too many hands in the project, changing this and tweaking that, you wind up never having what you started with. They have to remember that with every little change the project timeline increases. So, what can we do in the process both technically and philosophically and communication-wise to improve our ability to make decisions?

One thing companies must do is build a lot of prototypes. I think that if people really understood how to use prototypes they would build 10 times as many as they do now. Prototypes are great communication facilitators and people often overlook the power of the prototype. Drawings just don't say it sometimes. Don't skimp on prototypes.

What is Sundberg-Ferar's product development process? Take us from conception, brainstorming, market research, designing, prototyping, all the way to the actual production of parts.

Curt Bailey: What we usually do is custom-tailor the process to the company we are working with at the time. We work with projects as diverse as heart-lung machines, washing machines, laundry baskets and sporting goods; there are idiosyncrasies and different timelines. There are products that take six months to develop and others that take three years or more to develop. You have to be somewhat flexible when addressing development. There are common denominators, however.

Where we always start is a place we call the 'listening toolbox.' The toolbox is a list of questions we ask customers prior to starting a program. In going through the questions, we sometimes kill programs. Because what the customer realizes in reading these is that they have an awful lot of questions they need answering. It can delay the start of programs because they realize that they need to figure out a lot of things, which in the end we feel good about because they have had these discussions.

So we start with the toolbox. Once we have the answers to those questions and have the customer understanding what they are going to do, then we start with the premise that creativity is not just an output process. You are not asking creative people to give you output. A creative person's brain is not a wellspring, it is a processor. Creativity is not an output process, but an input/output process. So what we concentrate on is enhancing the quality of the input. We have a product development research staff that specializes in fuel for the creative process. We go out and look for unique and creative ways to see more than what customers are able to tell you.

Hal Sperlick, the guy who came up with the minivan idea with Lee Iacocca, once said, 'In all the years we were researching the minivan we never once got a letter from a housewife asking us to invent one.' The point here is that we try to get beyond just customer input. We have to go out and through observation turn this thing, whatever it is, into something. You want a product where people aren't going to argue about the price and want to be the first on the block to own it. Creativity is seeing connections where others see none at all.

Customers can't see the connections a creative team can see. If you take the company through a creative process you increase the odds that you are going to come up with a 'must have' product.

What is your opinion on the present state of the industry? (Product development, rapid product development.)

Curt Bailey: We have seen dramatic improvements through the industry in the last 10 years. There are so many customers who can benefit from so much of what companies like us offer. As product development professionals, we are better than we were, but I think we still have a long way to go. I don't think there are enough of us who know how to do great responsive creative product development yet.

What is your view on the future of product innovation and what should design engineers be keeping an eye out for?

Curt Bailey: That's a real hard one. There is a book I am reading on the history of innovation - humanity's innovation from prehistory to the present. It's a fascinating book because at the end the author states that there is no real singular genesis of any idea. There really is no formula; it's haphazard and evolutionary and happens because of mistakes. There are many ways that great innovations happen. People set out to invent something that does something. But that's only 10 percent. The other 90 percent happen onto things through this myriad of haphazard mistakes and of recombining technology in a different way. So what do you look out for? You look out for everything! You have to be a generalist.

Sundberg-Ferar gives each of its employees $2,000 for any kind of education. I let them take anything - singing, acting or guitar lessons. We give each employee $500 to go out and buy a technology toy. When its approved the gift has to stretch the boundaries of what they are comfortable with, so if you don't think you are ready for an MP3 player, we want you to buy one and make it work. Be intellectually curious; keep learning because stuff just emerges. Creativity is where one makes connections where there are not any connections. That's what it's all about.