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News from PDSS Inc.
"Leading the Future in Product Development" 
November 2012- Vol 5, Issue 11
In This Issue
A Bright Spot @ Kodak--The Digimaster Story
Greetings!
This month, Skip returns with a story of continued success at his former employer, Kodak. Read about the Digimaster printing system's origins and revolutionary development in the late 1990's. Skip's experience on this project was the basis for his book, Design for Six Sigma in Technology & Product Development!

-Carol

A Bright Spot @ Kodak--The Digimaster Story

This article is Part 1 of a remarkable story about product reliability development that was initiated and sustained for over 14 years across a product platform and family of derivatives because of the use of Critical Parameter Development & Management (CPD&M) and what I call "deep" Systems Engineering.

 

Just a few days ago I returned to Kodak to reconnect with old friends who were with me on the original development team for the Kodak Digimaster, a black & white digital printing system that is still in production today! I wanted to see how the product had evolved and stood the test of time since it was launched in 1999. I am happy to report the news is good!

 

This article will outline some highlights of how the Digimaster was developed in the late 1990's - focusing on reliability development. A subsequent article will report on the performance of the Digimaster as it exists today - focusing on sustaining and growing reliability from the 1999 base line.

 

Come back with me now to 1995 to look inside a newly constructed product development organization within Kodak's Office Imaging Division, which employed about 1,500 people at the time and was embarking on their second foray into a completely digital printing system; this one was a giant!

Digimaster
The Kodak Digimaster

 

Here were some of the circumstances around the project: 

  1. The Digimaster project was the largest development investment within Kodak at the time.
  2. Kodak's CEO, George Fisher, had just altered the corporate strategy to focus on digital imaging in all formats that would enable the company to grow in spite of the decline in traditional silver-halide photographic markets. The new strategy was primarily for digital color - which had an effect on the Digimaster because it was a black and white electrophotographic system.
  3. Because Digimaster was not a color platform, we were told right up front that if we succeeded our division would be sold and if we failed we would be disbanded and laid off. This really focused everybody's attention!
  4. The project was aimed directly at a black and white commercial printing market that was under significant pressure to lower life-cycle ownership costs while producing breakthrough results in print quality and speed - all under the added burden of customized printing on-demand so that each job could be set up to individual customer needs.
  5. The product's first priority was reliability. If the Digimaster was not equal to or better than the competition, which had a 10-year lead, we had no business case.
  6. Image quality was a close second priority. If the Digimaster could not produce 6 Sigma levels of image quality across 15 different measures that customers cared about, again we had no business case. It could not be a "me too!" product.
  7. Our COO had an agreement with George Fisher that time-to-market was a third priority. The launch window was wide enough to justify taking the time to assure reliability and image quality were not compromised, as had happened in the past on prior products. To be sure, it was a tough schedule, but it allowed for a new approach to product development that would increase the probability of meeting reliability goals. A monetary bonus program provided incentive for everybody to meet the schedule.
  8. Product cost was a fourth priority. If the product performed competitively at launch, we had the skills necessary to rapidly follow up, within a year, with a cost-reduced product that would deliver the margins we needed to sustain the business - once the customers' reliability and image quality requirements were met. We knew where to compromise on cost to meet our primary goals.

 

Courageous Management of the Digimaster Development Project

 

The most important factor that contributed to the Digimaster being developed right the first time was the courage and tenacity of three individuals: the new COO of the business unit, the existing VP of Product Development / Chief Engineer and the new Director of Systems Engineering. The people in these positions represented a change in leadership that used their authority to conduct product development in a new and different way. Here's what they did...

 

1. Implemented a Systems Engineering Organization and Process: The new COO and VP of Product Development directed that the development project follow a rigorous Systems Engineering process driven by our most experienced engineers from the design and quality organizations.

 

The new Director of Systems Engineering assembled the Systems Engineering organization (SE Team) from scratch. Members were hand-picked from employees with no less than 15 to 20 years of experience in product, production and service engineering development and operations. The rest of the SE Team comprised several of the best Drafter/Designers for systems architecting, spatial allocation and integration, a team of Quality and Reliability Engineers, and Technicians and Test Operators that could evaluate system performance all the way along the development process - not just in the final phase as had been done in the past. This was a cohesive team that developed system performance into the product from the very beginning of the project. The SE Team partnered with the Technical Subsystem Teams to balance the performance of the integrated system.

 

Other key members of the SE Team included experienced production, supply chain and service engineering veterans comprising a "prevent team" from the very beginning of the project. The members of the prevent team roved the project to assess, coach and advise the sub-teams to avoid mistakes and design logical, assemble-able and serviceable designs - preventing all the problems that would usually happen due to rushing the design to market.

 

A 6-person team of Subject Matter Experts planned and conducted pro-active training, coaching and assessment of progress across all the layers of management within the project to support Critical Parameter Development and Management in parallel across all major sub-teams. The VP of Development and the top technical team leaders across the project were trained in CPD&M metrics (Capability Growth Indices) and how to consume monthly progress summaries so they could prevent problems and activate pre-planned contingent actions when necessary.

 

2. Revised the Commercialization Process: The Kodak Equipment and Materials Commercialization Processes were revised to include data-driven Design and Gate Reviews based upon summary data developed from Critical Parameter Management methods. As part of this refined focus on risk management and decision making, all development teams were directed to use the tools, methods and best practices that we had learned from Clausing (QFD and the Houses of Quality), Pugh (the Pugh Concept Evaluation & Selection Process) and Taguchi (Designed Experiments and the Methods of Robust Design and Tolerance Design). Many project team members were trained in the use of a variety of Designed Experimental Methods (DOEs).

 

3. Committed to Disciplined Project Management: Two very experienced project management coaches were assigned to the project and spent every day for 5 years roving the project gathering task completion information to update the project schedule on a weekly basis. Monte Carlo Simulations were performed across all forms of the variable critical paths within the project schedule at the team level as well as the Integrated Project Plan level. As a result, everyone on the 600-person team knew what needed to be done, how long it was to take and what to do if the schedule began slipping. Contingency planning and schedule balancing were required on a weekly basis. Leading indicators of significant schedule slips were made visible and the team had time to nip them in the bud before they could develop into major problems. This was a major departure from the old way of development.

 

4. Built the Systems Integration Prototypes on the Production Line: During the Concepting Phase of the project, the SE Team devised a plan to build all major subsystem prototypes and the system integration machines on existing production lines, resulting in prototypes of the highest caliber for streamlined development cycle-time. People who had seen previous generations of prototypes could not believe the high quality of these adjustable designs that were world-class examples of how to prepare to conduct DOEs as part of our CPD&M maturation strategy. Previously, the prototypes were hand-built to try to pass a test and then were subjected to round after round of build-test-fix cycles until we were forced to integrate and launch the product - usually at about half of the desired level of system reliability.

 

5. Invested in Data Acquisition Systems for Comprehensive System Integration DOEs and Functional Testing: Two $100,000 Lab View-based data acquisition systems were acquired that provided state-of-the-art functional measurement capability across the integrated system. Over 110 analog and digital signals could be measured during all sorts of DOEs and customized test scenarios to balance the opto-mechatronic functions comprising in excess of 260 candidate critical functions that were governing the performance and thus the quality of the system. They proved invaluable to system performance balancing under both nominal and stressful running conditions that would forecast the future behavior of the system in customer environments.

 

6. Implemented a Failure Reports and Corrective Action System (FRACAS): A rigorous reporting system was developed and deployed to gather reports of all failures or problems that were leading to failures. All corrective actions were required to be proven effective and properly closed out in the database. Nobody could hide their problems!

 

These are some of the reasons the Digimaster was the first product in the approximately 25-year history of Kodak's copier/printer business to meet the projected reliability goals set for it at the beginning of the program. Historically, development within this industry typically displayed the ability to grow reliability between 50% and 60% of goal prior to launch; the Digimaster development processes fell within this standard range. The Digimaster was within the 95% confidence band (2 Sigma) of meeting our original goals. It met 100% of the reliability goal for Mean Images Between Stoppages, which was unprecedented in the business unit. At first Kodak's leadership found it hard to believe these results, but once they absorbed the facts - they were delighted and still surprised this could be accomplished. To many of them, truth was stranger than fiction!

 

In 1999, the Digimaster was launched and with its superb reliability and 6 Sigma image quality, it held its own in the black and white digital printing marketplace, even though its main competitor had a 10 year lead in the general markets where this type of system is used.

 

In early 2013, I will report how the Digimaster has evolved and how it performs today... a little hint - the news is good - very good indeed!

 

(note: Kodak and Digimaster are trademarks of Eastman Kodak Company.)

Is there a topic you'd like us to write about? Have a question? We appreciate your feedback and suggestions! Simply "reply-to" this email. Thank you!
 
Sincerely,
Carol Biesemeyer
Business Manager and Newsletter Editor

Product Development Systems & Solutions Inc.

 

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About PDSS Inc.
Product Development Systems & Solutions (PDSS) Inc.  is a professional services firm dedicated to assisting companies that design and manufacture complex products.  We help our clients accelerate their organic growth and achieve sustainable competitive advantage through functional excellence in product development and product line management.
 
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