Wednesday, March 30, 2011

A Breakdown in Communication

A communications cable was manufactured by a custom cable and harness supply house, and due to use, the housing had been removed along with the heat shrink so as to expose the blue and white wires.  What was visible is that the white wire on this cable is exposed; what you could not see was a single strand from the white wire hovering dangerously close to the blue wire. As the system vibration frequency changed within operation modes, the close proximity of the blue and white wires would cause an intermittent fault.  The result of the fault, considered by itself, was not too severe: the system shut down.  The resulting system-wide damage was costly, however, due to the thermal stress of multiple shutdowns.  Additionally customer perception declined quickly.COM_Cable_1

The failure is in the design, rather than in the manufacturer. The cable specified a wire gauge too large for the connector, causing the close proximity of the blue and white wires. An off-the-shelf bulkhead connector was specified due to cost and availability, while a custom design with smaller gauge wires would have cost more initially, it would have saved service time, product life, and customer perception.  How could the team have chosen the correct connector up front? Manufacturing drawings, tied together with an electrical design review, could have brought this problem to light prior to deployment.  While the hardware cost for the correct connectors was $100, compared to $5.00 for the bulkhead connectors, the overall cost of using the bulkhead connectors exceeded $8,000 due to travel expenses, service engineer cost and the cost of the software development tool to detect the problem.  The frustration level of the customer was elevated enough to call off the installation of another system Blogger Labels: case study,Failures,Breakdown,Communication,system
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Monday, March 28, 2011

Prototype Contract Technicalities

From early on the thought is to secure customers; otherwise, why go into business? When the first advanced prototype is approaching completion, the anticipation of putting a demo unit in the field builds. Sales or management go out with a list of prospects to secure a demonstration partner. The specifications that were developed with goals for the system are discussed and some considerations are made of the prototype’s capabilities, but sales, and management want to find a site, and the developers are

Friday, March 25, 2011

Customer Expectation

Frequently, understanding customers’ needs and expectations can be difficult. Sometimes identifying the actual customer is misunderstood and even overlooked. Identifying target markets is critical. Exploring all avenues at the onset of the project and eliminating the least favorable ones is better than attempting to focus on only one or two markets. Designs will be made with some knowledge of alternative markets in mind, even if they are not the target. Finding the best fit and then attempting to recover with redesigns is costly.

Exploring a large list of potential markets might consume more time in the beginning, but will identify additional opportunities and reduce affects if the market shifts.

Performing voice-of-the-customer (VOC) data collection helps to identify customers’ wants, but something that a customer has not experienced is merely an expression of someone else’s experience and does not truly reflect the customer’s needs. Experience with similar products enables customers to express their expectations, but identifying potential customers’ needs and expectations requires some additional analysis to apply the information gained to the design specifications. Start with a good list and eliminate the outliers, focus on the major issues, and keep in mind the questionable items. The remaining items become a list of potential features down the road.

Blogger Labels: Voice of the customer,VOC,Customer