Helping to transform product verification, validation and testing (VVT) for manufacturing and other businesses
A new simple online product development tool designed by The Open University is aiming to boost a wide variety of different sized industries to help them meet customer needs and enter competitive markets quicker.
The VVT tool was designed by Dr Khadija Tahera, Senior Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management at the OU’s Business School.
And it was recently tested by a team led by Ciaran Fanning, Engineering Director at the Northern Ireland branch of Terex, a global manufacturer of materials-processing machinery and waste and recycling equipment.
His sector of the business concentrates on crushing and screening, the process that transforms stones and rock fragments into different sizes for customers. Here’s how they got on in their test:
How did you hear about the tool? We were invited to a demonstration at our local college to understand how it works.
What are the advantages of this tool for businesses larger than SMEs? When we look at SMEs, we see how agile they are, how quick they get products to market.
From that perspective it was interesting to see what we could leverage from a tool like that in a big organisation like ours to help with time to market, because it’s a key target for us in everything we do.
We have lots of different functions involved in the development of new product and as a result, we are masters in delivering high quality, but not necessarily in bringing products to market in an expedited fashion.
So, it was interesting to see how this tool could maybe help us step back from the detail and take a high-level overview of the project; identify the really important elements and see how we could escalate the timescale to deliver products.
What was the best part of your trial?
"Simplicity. It’s easy to use and to pick up. Sometimes, in a big business it’s difficult to step back and see the larger picture and understand whether we are really accomplishing the goals we set out to do. The VVT tool allowed us to do that to make sure that we were still on track."
What did you think of the way it filters information? It was interesting to understand if certain information is an important contribution to a product going forward, or not. I could see the tool’s use way before engaging with a product: setting out your plan and in testing. It made you think of your product from a different perspective, particularly honing in on your customer’s needs and wants.
The output is clear and not challenging to understand. It makes it very valuable, particularly the simple ranking order of importance. You can make a judgement based on the ranking that the tool has placed on the different approaches.
Would your business need extra support to run the tool?
"I don’t think so. As a big business we are in the right frame of mind to understand the inputs to it. An SME that doesn’t have a detailed new-product development process might find it a little bit daunting. But not a lot of training is required."
When you’ve been through the tool once and rationalised the outputs, challenged and questioned them, I think it makes it a lot easier.
How does it assist your own processes? We have a robust process that covers all our bases, but it’s so detailed it’s difficult to get a clean overview of the project. This tool helps us break down the project into simple blocks; examine those and how they relate to the testing framework and understand what it’s going to deliver.
Does it give greater clarity about the customer’s needs?
"Yes. We can interact with other functions in a cleaner, simpler way. "
It allows us to define the requirements of the project in a plain manner that everyone can understand, particularly focusing on customer requirements and how that filters through the business.
It enables a new level of collaboration providing a framework where we can have proper discussions about how different functions, from product management to design, delivery, testing, and route back to what the customer wants. It’s early days because we haven’t completed any projects using the tool, but it inspires confidence.
Do you think it might save man hours? Yes, there are good opportunities to save manpower resource as a result of the tool. The main opportunity for us is to identify where there’s waste in the system; where we are performing test tasks that aren’t valuable or performing multiple tests that could be condensed into one.
Will it improve product safety? We already have a robust system for managing product safety but for an SME that doesn’t have enough resources to have specialists in all these areas, I think it will definitely point out gaps, particularly around product conformance that maybe they haven’t been drawn to. From a broad risk assessment picture, it would be more helpful for SMEs than it is for big established, well-resourced organisations like ours.
Was it worth the time invested?
"Yes. We went into this dialogue with open eyes. In big organisations, projects pass through many departments, and the original customer goal can get lost. Your tool can be used to keep everyone aligned and focused on the customer, not just their own priorities."
The ultimate aim would be to try and use it as much as possible to collaborate with our existing processes in the business.
For a big organisation like ours, we might use it for new product identification and design reviews preceding our test programme. It could be used in a cross-functional format with a lot of team members to make sure that everyone’s focus is on track and ready to deliver what’s needed for the project.