Newsletter Masthead
 
March 2010
 The Engineering Pyramid:

Increasing the Speed of Innovation

In today’s reality, manufacturers all over the world have to increase their speed of innovation in order to compete.  The Engineering Pyramid was a methodology we helped implement in P&G Babycare to move from 600 support engineers to less than 125 support engineers.  HOW…moving your engineering workforce to more configuration engineering instead of designing from scratch; this involves moving your engineering organization from working primarily with fabricated and commercial parts to complete assemblies.

Engineering Pyramid
 

The Engineering Pyramid Methodology

  1. Take advantage of the parts and assemblies that already have most of the common components and use them as the basis of the next piece of equipment
  2. Parts and assemblies must be designed to support reuse in many applications
  3. Engineers need to pay attention on how assemblies are structured and the interfaces to these assemblies to get the assemblies to be reused
  4. Develop the system from the top-down


Implementing The Engineering Pyramid:

A. Develop the system from a top-down approach.

  1. Functionally describe what you are building on the top level before executing the design.
  2. Begin with a top-down approach by defining the highest level assembly before defining lower level assemblies.
  3. Work your way down to the detail level making sure all constraints at the upper level are being followed.
  4. Design the interfaces in a common format between functions

B. Use a documentation system that flows from top down. (In most engineering systems documentation flows from the bottom up.)

  1. Connect all information to the entity/part.
  2. Document in a way that if the higher assembly is reused, all the information travels with it.
  3. Establish relationships from the assemblies that flow from the top down.
  4. Allow users to drill down into the level of detail they need.
  5. Create views of the information for different users

Example: A person that operates the equipment needs a different level of information than a person that maintains the equipment.

C. Leverage the Engineering Pyramid

  1. Train on: Design for re-use, Leveraging component interfaces and Design using the top-down approach
  2. Reward people for re-application of existing components.
  3. Reap Profitable Innovation

Those who adapt this methodology will be the low cost, fast producer for their industry.  If you need help in speeding innovation at your company, check out my book: The Consumer’s Workshop: The Future of American Manufacturing ( http://www.amazon.com/Consumers-Workshop-Future-American-Manufacturing/dp/1419654454/sr=8-1/qid=1171058776/ref=sr_1_1/105-7417071-6070047?ie=UTF8&s=books ) or contact me.

Ben Moore
Agent Technologies, Inc.

Continue to blog about this article at: http://xrpsystem.blogspot.com

View Past Issues at: http://www.agenttech.com/archive.asp

 

The Consumer's Workshop: the future of American manufacturing
 
The Consumer's Workshop: The Future of American Manufacturing is a hand book on how to setup the systems within your company and create the workforce you need to be successful now and in the future.  Written by authors that have worked at some of America's largest manufacturers, founded their own manufacturing organizations and helped numerous small manufacturers grow.
 
The Consumer's Workshop: The Future of American Manufacturing is a must read for today's business leaders.  It is insightful and provocative in its approach to where US manufacturing has been, how manufacturing got into the troubles it faces today and what we need to do to become the standard for world class once again.  If we want to know how to regain that competitive edge once again, the roadmap is certainly the pages of The Consumer Workshop.

-- Bruce Vaillancourt,Director, NIST MEP Program, TechSolve, Inc.

Book The Consumer's Workshop is an extremely timely review of how manufacturing strategy developed in the past
and how it will change in the future. The author team clearly demonstrates that companies have to change -- and provide plenty of advise how such a change should take place."
-- Frank Piller, PhD, International Manufacturing Consultant

As the authors make clear, eventually American manufacturing will become the workshop for direct production of consumer's own designs -- or it will be no more. Begin that path by following the steps outlined here."
-- B. Joseph Pine II, author, Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition

Investment: $12.99

 

 

 

 

In This Issue

The Engineering Pyramid

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Manufacturing Statistics March 2010

 

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Manufacturing Statistics 
 
1) Manufacturing Output increased 0.9% in January 2010. The capacity utilization rate for total industry rose 0.7 percentage point to 72.6 percent, a rate 8.0 percentage points below its average from 1972 to 2009.
Source: Federal Reserve Board

2) Employment in manufacturing was essentially unchanged in February. Job gains in a component industries were offset by job losses in motor vehicles, parts and chemicals.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

3) Manufacturing Trade Deficit in January 2010 decreased $2.6 billion, to $37.3 billion.
Sources: Census Bureau, Bureau of Economic Analysis

4) Manufacturers' New Orders in January 2010 increased $5.2 billion or 3.0% to $175.7 billion.
Source: Census Bureau

5) Manufacturers' Inventories in January 2010 decreased $0.1 billion to $302.6 billion.
Source: Census Bureau

 

 
   
 
 
 
 
Agent Technologies, Inc.
Phone:  513-942-9444
Fax:  513-942-9446
 
Founded in 1995, Agent Technologies, Inc. provides e-Commerce Solutions, Business Reporting Solutions, e-Business Strategy Development and Agent Based Systems. Try xRP - Our Online CRM/ERP Solution (xrpsystem.com).  FREE 30 Day Trial!