Here I’d add one extra topic that I think very essential, change control. It is mostly happened in NPI phase, even we can have decades of change request from customer or to customer, e.g. changes in the schedule, costs, scope, requirements, resources etc. which may already defined in approved document. PM has to review and follow-up all change like this. In general, PM should pass the change request to his project team and then get common understanding and give analysis what potential effect would be caused.
Followings are some tips about the change control:
· Please recall the triangle of project management, there are Scope, Cost and Time. If someone of these three items changes, we have to check what must be done with two remaining items.
· Well argue the proposals of scope changes and their implications to the project correctly. Approval from the project team is necessary.
· Have Product Log to record all the change and make special decision.
The most change is in form of ECR/ECO. We can find 1> Scope (product name, unit name, and their revision number, change description, product or unit affected), 2> Schedule (Implementation type, effective date, shipping date), 3> Cost (final cost in currency, merged with material scrap cost, rework cost, tooling cost, material change cost, price change, etc.
Some people may don’t understand the “Implementation type”. It means the change cut-in type, in general, there are 6 types with the example of product version change: a> Phase out/phase in: use up all available material for old version and then start up production of new version; b> Implement immediately: start new version immediately and stop production of old version now; c> Fixed number: produce fixed quantity (100 pieces) of old version before producing new version; d> Fixed shipping date (or effective date): start producing new version and ship them on fixed day (Jan-1-2008); e> Parallel production: produce old version and new version together; f> Special delivery, based on customer requirement.
The cost includes: a> On-hand material scrap, both finished goods and components, both direct materials and indirect materials; b> Open-purchased material scrap; c> Tooling cost, modification or add; d> Rework cost, labor cost for reworking some finished goods; e> Material change cost, material cost for the rework; f> Price change.
2.6. Transfer phase:
When customer approved the Ramp-up plan, NPI PM has to call a meeting with factory steering to transfer the project and report to customer about the transfer. Being a responsible Manager, we have to prepare a completed NPI report to factory members to make the transfer successful.
Here I list the KPI (Key Performance Indicators KPIs are measures to a NPI project: PM has to review the actual vs target.
· Project time schedule
· Project budget (from CapEx and Investment plans)
· Process performance, e.g. Yield, scrap rate, etc.
· Line capacity
Has a project folder listed following:
· Project management document
§ CapEx and Investment plan
§ Quotation report
§ Project organization and meeting, necessary presentation
§ BOM & ECO
§ Product log, including all product change
· Product information
§ Drawing & Specification
§ Layout and facility request
§ Standard time calculation
§ Ramp-up plan
· PQP documents
§ Control plan, flow chart and PFMEA
§ Capability & GR&R report
§ Work instructions
· Process requirement
§ SMT documents, i.e. Gerber, X-Y matrix, stencil, golden sample.
§ Assembly documents, i.e. fixture drawing, special requirement, equipment setting.
§ Testing document, i.e. hardware and software setup, ICT.
§ Traceability requirement
§ Packing and shipping requirement
· Others.
Sometimes NPI team has to give effort to support factory team for 1 months or more to ensure the factory can handover this product completely without wrong. When we can close this NPI formally? The agreement can be defined in transfer phase. Generally speaking, to meet KPI target and run normal production constantly for 3 months, then we can close it.
So tough? Yes, it is really a tough job and, patience and aggressive spirit needed. As almost all customers are urged their product can get higher profit with more advanced performance and quicker design-to-market capability, we, EMS participants, also have to continually improve our NPI solution and technologies to meet this high demand. I think there are two principles. Firstly, with more effective systematic way to ensure NPI running mistake-proof. We can shorten some phases but never try to skip. There are many cases that much investment were wasted with poor planning or communication, at the same time, some people write the lesson learnt again and again. I don’t find them can get real learning if no good systematic way. Secondly, a pro-active product team is the prerequisition to final success. A worst case is, you lead a small project that your boss never care due to low profit or other reason, and your team members, assigned by their boss, often occupied by other important issues or works so irresponsible, how to run the program? I can foresee an exhausted future, even you have whatever ambitious and self-motivate thought. Fortunately, being Program Manager, sometimes we can change some resource allocation after negotiating with the management team.
Let’s see what key members we need. Program Officer, she communicates with customer for forecast, order, plan, delivery, invoice, cost control (optional), and monitor the order fulfillment status and delivery schedule. Another job is handle claims and repairs. Use delivery accuracy (DA) and customer satisfaction (Survey score) as her measures. Planner, she receives the forecast and order from Program officer, and then release production schedule as well as available resources, including inventory, line capacity, and watch on the daily output. She has to be sensitive to material shortage and line down time. Anyone made negative influence to the output, she’d fight with him. Use delivery accuracy (DA) and works in process (WIP) as measures. Materials Controller, release the material demand plan according to forecast and control ITO and excess/obsolete materials. Her main task is how to optimize material inventory and improve flexibility to customer demand change. So she must be patient and can thought about all details because any carelessness would cause high loss. A fact is, we cannot loss much money on material. Use ITO and excess rate to measure. Product Document Officer, control the product document, create BOM in ERP and eMatrix. Use the cycle time of processing document as measure.
Then we talk about engineering group. Product Engineer, be the leader of engineers to the product quality and manufacturing process performance, who transfer customer specification and requirement into internal format and direct the implementation. Being the interface to customer engineers, he is the owner to customer ECR/ECO, is the commander to customer requirement, the director to product manufacturing. Use customer satisfaction, process indexes (yield, scrap, claim), and project transfer successful to measure. Quality Engineer, he build up and maintain the product quality system, set process target and review it regularly, lead external and internal audit, work as the interface to customer complaint. Series run and sample are under his eyes, all quality issues, for example, cosmetic specification, drop test, thermal test, failure analysis, and so on. Use audit findings, RTV, customer satisfaction to measure his performance. Testing Engineer, he does the development, maintenance and improvement of the test hardware and software control. He’d better have a software change record in convenient for future control. Like Mechanical Engineer, he controls the assembly tooling, jigs. SMT Engineer, he receive SMT documents and fulfill the requirement. He may raise question about to add more inspection equipment |