Fhe, Inc

I. Introduction

FHE Inc. is a manufacturer of pumps and related fluid handling equipment used primarily by automobile, appliance and construction industries. For a five year period, sales and profits have risen due to aggressive new product introduction. The FHE Company has three main departments; Marketing, Engineering & Manufacturing.

However, aggressive new product introduction has resulted in bottlenecks in the engineering department and a breakdown of communication and coordination among management and departments. Currently, Lum Donaldson, the product development engineering manager is looking for ways to improve the new product development process at FHE, Inc.

II. Statement of the Problem

FHE, Inc. has an existing product development process. However, Mr. Donaldson, the Product Development Engineering Manager is encountering challenges along the way. A coordination problem between technical program managers and product managers is present due to lack of clear division of responsibility. In addition, bottlenecks occur in the engineering department due to fluctuating workload. Thus, there is a need to see how FHE, Inc. can improve its procedures, the organization, and the project control systems to make the new product introductions go more smoothly.

III. Analysis and Findings

FHE, Inc.’s product development process has a good kick start, that is, it starts with a marketing request, where it presents already a concept of the product it will produce and the market it will serve. Then it goes to the concept conference where the Marketing and Engineering Departments determine if they can proceed with the development or not. However, in this stage, it is important to include representatives of the Manufacturing Department to also help determine if production is feasible. Brining a representative of the manufacturing department on board will avoid or minimize potential manufacturing problems in the different manufacturing stages and avoid product recalls. The rest of the steps as detailed in the New Product Development Schedule are also desirable.

In its new-product development process, it is helpful as well that FHE, Inc. adopts the use of Quality Function Deployment. This will help ensure that new product develop will satisfy customer and that the product design is based on customer desire.

With the relatively high degree of uncertainty in new-product development, the use of Decision Tree will also help put expected monetary values on each alternative course of action that FHE, Inc. will take

In its product design, FHE, Inc. must always consider the six (6) issues if product development. These are: (1) robust design, (2) modular design, (3) computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM), (4) virtual reality technology, (5) value analysis – conduct a product value analysis report which will tell which product should be eliminated and failed to justify further investment in R and D, and (6) environmentally friendly design

A clearly defined role must be established to clarify the organizational relationship between the product managers, technical program managers, and manufacturing managers. Definite duties and responsibilities must be identified and specifically assigned to each.

A regular conference or coordination meeting must be carried out to bring up and resolve issues in an expedient manner. Management needs to ensure that there is no doubt about which department is responsible for each task.

To