John Deere

admin — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:32:36 +0000

Like many manufacturing companies,
John Deere maintains a very active
supply chain management philosophy.

Caterpillar

admin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:51:58 +0000

The largest equipment and engine
manufacturer in the world contacted
New Standard to develop a
new automated process…

Trico Honda

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:52:16 +0000

Trico was having issues with the
primary retainer wiper component
for the US and Chinese version
of the Honda Accord.

Overhead Door

admin — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:53:38 +0000

Genie came to New Standard with
a base model of a new generation
of garage door opener.

REQUEST A FREE QUOTE!

admin — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 14:12:33 +0000

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Click here to receive your fast
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50 Thoughts About Innovation

admin — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:12:17 +0000

New Standard’s thoughts on inovation…

There needs to be lots of conflict between everyone; within the team, with senior management, with vendors. There should be heated, authentic debates. None of it should be personal.
Never allow silence. Polite head nods in a meeting indicate that there is a low level of trust in the room and therefore you are not getting the feedback you need to be successful.
Admit you don’t know. Nobody else does either. Figure out how you are going to find out.
Plan-Plan-Plan. Then get ready to change it. The value of the plan is not the piece of paper it generates but in the grounding of the team to all the interdependencies on the project. Knowing these interdependencies helps you to adjust to the real world conditions.
Grinding out singles, over time, yields better results than trying to bomb home runs. Iterative learning is how you get better.
Build crappy prototypes fast – Jeff Hunter, Talentism
Know what you are the best in the world at. In the age of global competition you have to know why the customer should choose you, and how you are going to deliver the solution better than anyone else in the world.
Project milestones need to be defined enough to easily know if you have met it or not. Otherwise it’s easy to argue that you actually did meet the commitment. One example, have a working prototype that meets the requirements documents.
Always provide range estimates for how much the product will cost. A point estimate will always be wrong. Consistently revise these estimates based on what you’ve learned. Be able to demonstrate how you got to your final cost.
If you can’t explain it in 5 minutes either you don’t understand it or it doesn’t work.
You will never have enough time or money or resources. What separates the great from the good is that the great figure out how to do it anyway.
People are born with the desire and ability to create. All you have to do is figure out what constraints they are under and remove them to achieve results.
People, people, people.
PEOPLE, PEOPLE, PEOPLE!
The laws of physics do not cease to exist on your stove. This is a reference from the movie My Cousin Vinny in which the lead prosecutor was arguing that the witness’ timeline was wrong because it would have required that his stove operated under a different set of physics laws. The same applies to your project. Just because someone wants something quickly doesn’t mean that it’s possible. Procurement and approval systems inherently add time to your project.
There are really only three things that the average manager cares about: 1. Is it on time? 2. Is it on budget? 3. Will the customers be happy? (Meaning will they buy lots of them at what we want to charge for it?)
There has to be Kool-Aid available it you want people to drink it. Every great product had a core group of people willing to do what ever it took to be successful but first they had to believe in something.
Offering the Kool-Aid requires some sort of gathering. Most people see these types of kickoff meetings as a waste of time, taking away from the real work. But without willing enrollment you will be pushing rope the whole project to get things done. It’s actually faster to gain commitment upfront.
Creative solutions require tractor time. The best ideas come after a period of gestation. You would be surprised how many of America’s ideas came while on the lawn tractor.
Cross pollination is a huge resource for ideas. Get out of the cubicle and out into the real world.
Create visibility. The minute you regularly review action registers it is clear to see who is helping and who is not. Often you don’t have to say anything to correct the behavior.
Never allow more than two pages for a report. This allows for a faster transfer of information and saves time.
With people slow is fast, fast is slow – Steven Covey, The Eight Habit. Take time to build trust with the team, it pays off in the long run.
If you don’t have the trust of your team you could be driving off a cliff and they wouldn’t tell you.
Setbacks are inevitable, misery is a choice –Steven Covey
Know down seven times; stand up eight – Chinese Proverb
If there weren’t problems they wouldn’t need half of you.
Shamelessly steal good ideas. Give credit when you do.
Allow sufficient time to plan.
Never sell something to a customer that you think is going to work. Know that it is going to work.
Know the basis of competition for your product: That is, why are people choosing to buy your product versus something else.
Don’t over deliver on a basis of competition that the market doesn’t care about. At some point a particular feature becomes good enough and simply becomes an expectation for your customer. It will be hard to convince your engineers of this because by nature they want to “make it better”.
Stay away from Winnie the Pooh Science: One time e in the hundred acre woods everyone panicked because the calendar stopped at December. They believed they would forever be stuck in Winter. Don’t allow theories that sound plausible, prove root cause.
Mandate Scientific Methodology. This requires a lot of paperwork to collect all the data. Enforce the two page rule for reviews.
Have reviews in the lab, on the shop floor, wherever the team is experimenting. That’s where all the learning is.
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. – Gandhi.
You can not make apple pie out of bananas. Allow people to work in roles that they are good at. Build the team so that they compliment each others skills. Don’t try to force fit people to change because you can’t.
If you are going through hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill
Doing something new for the first time takes longer than repeats.
It aint done until it’s done
You need both the “creatives” and the “get ‘er done’s” They will but heads.
Discipline sets you free. Getting things done correctly allows you the freedom to move to the next step.
Do not shoot the team for learning. Ever. They will stop learning.
In fact, look for evidence of learning. What have they learned, what do they want to learn?
Always have a plan B. If there is not a plan B, and you can’t get one, look for another project.
Use trigger points. Get everyone to agree that if this doesn’t happen by this time, then we are going to do this.
Compliment people when they do well.
Ability without character will lose – Marv Levy
Talk about the dead moose on the table. It’s right there, everybody knows about it. Caution: this is hard to do right and having the trust of the participants is a prerequisite.
Actions speak louder than presentations.