IPD and Cycle Time Excellence

2024-11-25

Integrated Product Development (IPD) and Cycle Time Excellence has proven to be effective for time-to-market all types of products and it is especially important for products that involve cross disciplinary development and production since 1986.  In order to win today’s time-to-market competition, one must implement IPD on a fully digitized platform that integrates digitization into your businesss operations, strategies, and workflows.  Spreadsheet IPD is no longer effective enough to compete in today’s market.

 

Master project and subprojects

The master project and subprojects approach is commonly used to break down a large IPD project into more manageable pieces, which can lead to better project outcomes such as: 

● Organization: The approach can help the IPD project be better organized. 
● Delegation: Subprojects can be assigned to the people who will do the work, which matches authority with accountability. 
● Tracking: Breaking down a project into smaller parts makes it easier to track milestones and identify issues early. 
● Risk management: Breaking down a project into smaller parts can lead to more effective risk management and mitigation strategies. 
● Reporting: The master project can be used to create consolidated project reporting. 
● Linking: The master project can be used to link different subproject information together. 
● Snapshots: The master project can be used to establish snapshots to review progress over time.
 
For example, a IPD project might have subprojects for:
● Market study
● Market validation
● Product development
● Product manufacturing
● Product launch
● Product lifecycle
 
The fully digitized platform must be able to support a main (integrated) project and a number of subprojects each has independent schedule, budget and quality management from each other but controlled by the main project.

Early risk intervention

For a new product development, it is very important to allow for early identification of issues and reduce design changes.  The fully digitized platform must support 4-eyes principle or maker/checker functionality in activity and project deliverables.  If an issue is not caught during the early stage, the mending cost could be 10 times or more.
 
The 4-eyes principle is a widely used control mechanism that requires that any activity by an individual within the organization that involves material risk profile must be controlled (reviewed, double checked) by a second individual that is independent and competent.  The fully digitized platform must allow the creation of deliverables to be submitted by the responsible individual(s) and reviewed and approved by a second individual(s) that is independent and competent.
 

Skill-based resource allocation

 

IPD is often multi-disciplinary and needs people with very different specialized skills.  The general resource allocation tools based on resource availability and job title wouldn’t work well with IPD projects.  Some IPD projects also require to hiring specialists from consultancy firms or outsourcing certain parts of the work to a partner and being able to track the skills and availability of partner resources is also important.

 

Project-based procurement

Project-based procurement is a method of acquiring goods and services for a specific project or subproject. It can involve a variety of items, including standard items, unique one-off items, tailored items and subcontracting.  Project-based procurement is a critical part of IPD project management that ensures a projects requirements are met within budget and on time. The fully digitized platform must be able to support the following common procurement activities:

● Identifying needs: Defining the procurement needs, budget, and strategy 
● Soliciting bids: Asking vendors to submit price quotes for the projects needs 
● Evaluating vendors: Selecting the most suitable vendors based on predefined criteria 
● Managing contracts: Negotiating contracts with the selected vendors 
● Monitoring: Tracking the procurement process to ensure quality 
● Finalizing: Completing payments and finalizing contracts
 

No latency budget and cost management

Project and subproject levels of budget and cost management is crucial in IPD.  This will ensure the successful completion of the project.   Accurate budgeting in project and subproject levels allows each team to efficiently plan their project resource acquisition, activities, and deployment of team members. The fully digitized platform can aggregate costs incurred but not yet paid in real-time based on contracts, delivery/acceptance information and invoices in real-time to minimize the latency of over-budget detection. 
 

Conclusion

 
Due to IPD involves cross disciplinary development and production, it is important to use a fully digitized platform that supports master project and subprojects, early risk intervention, skill-based resource allocation, project-based procurement and no latency budget and cost management.