Page 106 - Design for Six Sigma a Roadmap for Product Development

Product Development Process and Design for Six Sigma 81

car development time from 18 to 11 months. It is currently a software
platform for design review and communication.
V-Comm’s main functions include
■ Virtual design prototyping and production prototyping
■ Design review and visual communication
■ Model-based design simulation and error checking
■ Knowledge database and communication

V-Comm’s knowledge database is very comprehensive and always kept
up-to-date; it has the following contents:

■ Best Practice files
■ Past issues, quality hazards
■ Recommended key specifications

Based on Morgan and Liker (2006), V-Comm even has sound files of
latches and locks. When an engineer questioned whether a latch and
lock sounded “too cheap,” the design review team could bring up and
play the sound file of that latch/lock and discuss it.
V-Comm is a great success in lean knowledge and information man-
agement because it is right on the main traffic points of the product
development process; and it is a system that is ready to pull informa-
tion when needed at the right place. It is updated constantly and con-
tains a comprehensive amount of information, and it is easy to search.

Set-based design. As we discussed earlier, the product development
process is an information and knowledge generation process. Information
has time value; we want the key information to be available earlier, rather
than later. In Toyota’s product development process (Morgan and Liker
2006), one of its design principles says to “front-load the product develop-
ment process to explore thoroughly alternative solutions while there is
maximum design space.” The technical approach for this front-loading
principle is the set-based design practice.
The set-based design approach is used in the concept design stage,
and it works with modular design practice. Modular design is a design
practice in which a product is broken into smaller subsystems. The
subsystems are connected together via standard interfaces. In this
case, the subsystems become decoupled; that is, the design of one sub-
system is not dependent upon that of other subsystems. Therefore, the
design work for each subsystem can be conducted in parallel.
For each subsystem, we will start with the concept design. In regu-
lar design practice, we will start with a small number of design