They also went to Monogram design centers in New York and Chicago to test products with designers who were visiting to get specifications and information about products for their clients. At their training center in Louisville, they bounced ideas and product prototypes off of retail salespeople who came to learn about GE’s products. Having the team hear customer feedback firsthand was a big change, especially for the engineers. Instead of the traditional approach in which salespeople give design requirements and then leave, customers would be involved throughout. They became a tight group as they went down to the factory floor and built products together and looked at market research together. The cross-functional team was thrown into a room together. And you will have a production product in 11 or 12 months.” There will be a working product in 3 months. In January 2013, Chip Blankenship, CEO of GE Appliances issued a challenge to the newly formed team: “You’re going to change every part the customer sees. GE Appliance’s first attempt to apply FastWorks has been to create a refrigerator with French doors (doors that open from the middle) for their high end “Monogram” line.
In 2008, GE corporate decided to invest $1 billion in the $5.6 billion manufacturer of kitchen, laundry, and home appliances, and transform everything - launching 11 new product platforms, building or revamping 6 plants, and hiring 3,000 new workers. As I wrote in a previous post, GE Appliances is on a journey to prove that it can bring manufacturing back to the U.S. There is a lot at stake here for GE’s operations strategy. It’s now being tried in manufacturing since GE and others believe that rapid learning cycles with customers will reduce the risk that you build something you can’t sell.
The Lean Startup is an approach to developing new products that came out of “Agile” software development, with “sprints” (quick deliverables) and fast learning. GE has responded to this drive for speed and need to align more closely with customers’ needs by using a new technique called “FastWorks.” It’s a framework for entrepreneurs, building on “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries.
As the world becomes more digitized, generating more information surrounding products and services and speeding up processes, large and small companies in every industry, even manufacturing, are starting to compete more like the software industry, with short product lifecycles and rapid decision-making.
0 kommentar(er)
