Page 151 - Design for Six Sigma a Roadmap for Product Development

126 Chapter Four

■ A prioritizing mechanism for future projects that targets the loca-
tion, size, complexity, involvement of other units, type of knowledge
to be gained, potential for generalization, and replication or trans-
ferability and fit within the strategic plan
■ Instituting an accompanying accounting and financial evaluation
effort to cope with the scope of consideration of the impact of the pro-
ject on both fronts—hard and soft savings—and moving resources
toward the beginning of the design cycle in order to accommodate
DFSS methodology

The DFSS methodology, theory, and application, formed by integrat-
ing conceptual methods, design principles and axioms, quality, and
analytical methods, is very useful to the design community in both cre-
ative and incremental design situations. However, this vision needs to
evolve with more deployment as companies leave the DFSS pilot
phase. While the pilot can be considered narrow when compared with
the whole vision, emphasis on the key concepts that need to be main-
tained should gear deployment toward success.
If the DFSS approach is to become pervasive as a central culture
underlying a technology development strategy, it must be linked to
larger company objectives. In general, the DFSS methodology should
be linked to

1. The societal contribution of a company in terms of developing more
reliable, efficient, and environmentally friendly products, processes,
and services
2. The goals of the company, including profitability and sustainability
in local and global markets
3. The explicit goals of management embodied in company mission
statements, including characteristics such as greater design effective-
ness, efficiency, cycle-time reduction, and responsiveness to customers
4. A greater capacity for the deploying company to adjust and respond
to customers and competitive conditions
5. The satisfaction of managers, supervisors, and designers
A deployment strategy is needed to sustain the momentum achieved
in the pilot phase to subsequent phases. The strategy should show how
DFSS allows black belts and their teams to respond to a wide variety
of externally induced challenges and that complete deployment of
DFSS will fundamentally increase the yield of the company’s opera-
tions and its ability to provide a wide variety of design responses.
DFSS deployment should be a core competency of a company. DFSS
will enhance the variety of quality of design entities and design