The Challenge

Customer needs don't always happen during normal business hours. The calls don't always come while you're sitting at your desk. This case study begins at 6:30 PM Wednesday evening in a Rochester, NY hardware store in the power equipment aisle.

With an orbital sander in one hand, President and CEO, James Tabbi receives a call on his cell phone from the President of a design-engineering firm with an urgent need. A prototype power system must be completed on Friday for delivery to a customer on the West Coast on Sunday. The transformers produced by the original supplier do not work and the design engineer needs a team of experts to review the design, improve performance, and deliver prototypes the next day.

Being that James was out of the office, he was unsure if materials and resources were available to support such an effort, but he promised to have his engineering manager contact the design engineer within the next hour to discuss what might be possible.

What follows is the time line of events:

T0 + 0.5 Hr
Wednesday, 7:00 PM: Vic contacts the design engineer, discusses the application, and confirms what is required to achieve project success. The application is a high frequency, high voltage resonant power supply. Distributed capacitance and voltage breakdown appear to be the primary concerns. The prints and the schematic are transmitted to Vic. Some brief calculations confirm that a wire substitution and improved insulation techniques are needed to achieve acceptable performance. The Tabtronics MRP system indicates that materials are on hand to support the prototype build. As it turns out, Vic is out on business the next day, but he promises to get in contact with the Tabtronics product development team early the next morning and determine if the necessary resources can be applied to build and deliver prototypes by the end of the following day.

T0 + 1 Hr
Wednesday, 7:30 PM: Vic sends an urgent email to the product development team, describing the customer needs and proposing a division of responsibilities to achieve project success. The email ends with a simple statement: "If anyone feels that these actions cannot be accomplished without affecting existing customer commitments, please bring your concerns to Lynda at 8:30 AM since I plan on contacting Lynda at that time to see how things are going. Following this phone call, I plan on making a determination on how we should proceed."

T0 + 13 Hr
Thursday, 7:30 AM: Vic contacts the design engineer and confirms that the final determination of feasibility will be decided by 9:00 AM following a phone call to the plant to verify availability of resources.

T0 + 14 Hr
Thursday, 8:30 AM: Vic contacts the customer specialist Lynda Shaw. The team members have gathered at her desk to participate. As Vic reviews the customer needs, it becomes clear that the team members have already completed many of the tasks and are well prepared to make a commitment. Lynda has contacted the customer buyer and confirmed this need. If the project is a "GO", the buyer has agreed to set up a purchase order on the basis of time and materials. The materials assistant, Chris, has confirmed material availability, and the planner, Kathy, has confirmed that manufacturing resources can be provided without compromising other commitments. The Tabtronics engineer, Steve, has prepared a test plan and confirmed the feasibility of a new 1800 VRMS, 2 MHZ induced voltage test to verify acceptable insulation techniques. The engineering prototype specialist, Mike, has confirmed the intended manufacturing process identified miscellaneous materials, and will provide the ongoing technical resource as the prototype build unfolds. The production supervisor, Bopha, will be doing most of the winding and assembly operations on the initial prototypes. Bopha has agreed to stay late, if necessary, to prevent any impacts to commitments made to other customers. The test technician, Aaron Burr, will be performing the tests. He will make the resonant tank and check that the high frequency generator and the high voltage probe are ready for use. The operations manager and ISO 9001 management representative, Dick, approves the expedited effort and acts as the management facilitator on site.

T0 + 14.5 Hr
Thursday, 9:00 AM: Vic contacts the design engineer and confirms that the project is a "GO". Tabtronics has targeted a prototype delivery for the end of the business day.

T0 + 16 Hr
Thursday, 10:30 AM: In the stockroom, Bonnie completes the kit of materials needed to build 4 prototypes.

T0 + 16.5 Hr
Thursday, 11:00 AM: Bopha begins the winding process.  So far, everything is on schedule!

To + 21.5 Hr
Thursday, 4:00 PM: The prototypes have reached final test.  All systems go!

T0 + 22 Hr
Thursday, 4:30 PM: Lynda and Dick meet the customer representative who has arrived to pick up the prototype parts.

T0 + 22.5 Hr
Thursday, 5:00 PM: The customer representative picks up the prototype parts and a complete First Article Inspection Report, including a layout inspection and electrical test results.

Footnote:
The prototypes work fine, the system meets the performance objectives, and the design engineer hand carries the system to the West Coast as planned.

The Tabtronics On-Time Delivery metric is unaffected by the drop in effort and no orders are past due.

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