TRACXS Strategy
Provide the customer with better quality by meeting
their needs, and at the same time increase productivity.
Design Method
Document customer needs; evaluate and validate them;
design and manufacture what is needed; identify
areas where improvements can be made; implement
them.
Eight Phases To Implement The TRACXS Strategy
Establish a management team to
oversee a program to manage the design process.
Train the staff how to use TRACXS,
and work in cross-functional, project oriented teams.
Assign projects to teams, and identify
measurable objectives for projects.
Capture, evaluate, and validate
customer’s needs.
Develop, review, test, adjust,
and approve the proposed design and manufacturing
process.
As design improvements appear,
repeat the develop, review, test, adjust and approve
cycle.
Monitor and record complaints and
adjust the needs, design and manufacturing process
as needed.
Periodically evaluate project performance
and efficiency, and assign new projects and objectives.
DESIGN METHOD
Process Management Details
Managing the design process starts with
senior management council assigned the task of defining
and managing the design process.
To manage the process the steps involved
in the design process need to be sequenced. The resources
needed for a typical design need to be understood. Important
steps in the design process are:
Determining customer needs
Defining functional requirements
including:
...Reliability,
...Maintenance and repair,
...Human factors
Describing the design parameters
including the components and details
Identifying the process variables
in the manufacturing stage.
Preparing a production plan.
Each of the steps is usually supported
by various activities to ensure quality is maintained.
The most common way of ensuring quality standards are
met is to have documentation reviewed at design reviews
toward the end of each step. The design review activities
include:
Reviewing documents to make sure
the design is what is needed and then placing them
in a baseline of approved documents.
Ensuring changes to approved documents
do not adversely impact on the design and then approving
these changes to keep the baseline current.
Communicating the status of the
documentation to team members to make sure staff are
working with the current approved set
of documentation.
Once the process is defined staff are
trained about the process.
Projects and design teams are formed.
A detailed timetable is made for each project with resource
assignments.
The team carries out the design according
to the plan. The plan is adjusted with current data.
The design process is monitored and performance
assessed to improve the process.
DESIGN TEAMS
Effective design teams have plan of how
they are going to complete a project and use consensus
to manage the design process.
The plan consists of a timetable with
resource allocations or a project management plan.
Consensus building is a decision making
process where the participants are involved in the decision
and each person involved in the decision can live with
the outcome.
Team members have effective behaviour
by being supportive and non-critical. They are open
to new ideas.
Since designing a product or service is
a process, people need to be trained about how the process
works and the tools used in the process.
The team uses the process and tools to
implement the process.
As they are involved in the process they
collect data on the process and design. The data will
be used in the future to improve the design and the
process.
Simplify the design
process and Six Sigma by using Quality Function Deployment (QFD) as a
design tool in a networked environment. Save time and money, manage
teams and projects with TRACXS software.
