Featured Best Practice Business Process Improvement Technique

In development it is vital to check that a product is fit for sale before it is released for sale. The consequences of not doing so can be disastrous. There have been a number of recent cases where the business has a raging market success on their hands without the support capability in place to sustain sales. Examples include:

Early product or process failures
Inadequately trained support staff
Wasted promotional effort
Poor launch timing
Frustrated callers to call centres

A simple checklist should be constructed to ensure that all conceivable prerequisites have been considered, and executive sanction is given to proceed to the product launch stage. Ideally this checklist will have been agreed at the outset of the design and monitored during the life of the product development to check that the design and the market have not altered the requirements.

In all cases you should be checking for not just the technical excellence of the product but also that complete product life cycle support infrastructure / resources are in place and "up to the job". We also use a very rigorous process which defines "up to the job" very specifically in a further article from our archives: Previous Technique T007: "CARAP" analysis. It is the weakest link which will let you down!

Although the emphasis will vary in each business / product, in principle we believe there are 4 categories of things which need to be ready (in place & "up to the job") (to check) before product launch:

Market readiness
1. Recent competitor activity
2. Target customers / markets (Market test / consumer trials results)
3. Agents
4. Local or legal permissions / approvals needed
5. Relationship with other products (accidentally killing a "cash cow" by launching a "rising star" in competition with it)
6. Launch timing plan to suit local constraints / requirements
Product readiness
1. Current performance data (not the original design aspirations) / Evidence of product testing (early product or process results / failures)
2. Current product differentiation (unique selling points / buying criteria)
3. Snagging reports (whole life cycle) (e.g. installation / commissioning / first use / servicing / maintenance / disposal)
Whole life cycle support infrastructure readiness:
1. New Product Development & Introduction process
2. Materials Management & Capacity Management planning, control and communications processes
3. Qualified equipment / operations / deliverers / support staff
  1. Skill matrix (Who can do what) (See Previous Best Practice B006: Scarce Skills Management)
  2. Operations test results (process capability)
  3. Snagging reports
4. Complete supply chain (We discuss 10 further questions to ask in order to achieve supply chain coordination in our training course):
  1. Inbound (Procurement; Suppliers; Co-makers; Subcontractors; logistics / warehousing / acquisition of long lead-time items)
  2. Operations (Production; production / delivery support services)
  3. Outbound (warehousing / logistics / distribution / installation / commissioning)
  4. Agents
  5. After-sales service
    1. Servicing / maintenance
    2. Disposal
5. Sales / After sales organisation
  1. Brands / Patents / Trade marks registration
  2. Targeting plans
  3. Promotional effort / materials / documentation
  4. Ability to respond to enquiries / order processing (e.g. Call centre / help desk) (See Customer Relationship Management)
Contingency plans (See Previous Technique T027 Product FMEA; Previous Technique T033: Process FMEA)

An real example of such a checklist for a service requiring qualified service deliverers is given in Previous Best Practice B023 Product Fit for Sale Checklist.

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Speed of Beneficial Impact

Medium term

Type of benefits

Successful product launch
Improved delivery performance
Better customer service

Ease of Implementation

Easy

Prerequisites

Authorisation stages and authorities need to be agreed in advance.

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Whilst great care has been taken to provide relevant, accurate, practical, advice based on our considerable process design and development experience, this will almost certainly require interpretation into the context of your unique business. Please be careful in doing so and if in doubt seek expert advice. We would welcome your feedback!

SM Thacker & Associates

Independent Best Practice Training & Consultancy

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