Management of Design

1. Introduction

The need to correctly manage design has been apparent since the early days of the industrial revolution when problems occurred on some of the early large scale design projects.

One early example concerned the Great Eastern paddle and screw driven steamship built in the 1850s.
This ship featured several novel aspects. It was the biggest ship built at that date by a considerable margin, the gross weight was over 18000 tons. Brunel used a high degree of standardisation, 3 million 7/8 inch diameter rivets were used in the construction - which utilised inner and outer hulls separated by 2ft 10inches (863mm).
While the construction was reasonably straightforward, Brunel had insisted that the ship be built parallel to the river and would be launched sideways. The launching was fraught with problems and took 3 months and cost £120,000, leaving no money for completion. For further details click here

Although many major projects have been completed in the past 200 years, surprisingly, in some sectors, design projects are still regularly mis-managed. It is only necessary to read the newspapers to see frequent mention of government / defence projects that are late or over budget, or both, often by considerably amounts. Examples are the new British Library, the computer system for the Inland Revenue, the Millenium Dome and numerous defence projects such as the Bowman secure radio system.

2. How to Progress?

By looking at some of these design projects, it is possible to see the sort of thing that goes wrong, and hopefully you may be able to learn from these mistakes, although it is quite clear that despite various initiatives, the Government is in the main not learning and continues to waste money on a large scale. This can be contrasted with the private sector, which took on board lessons from their mistakes and has a much better record of managing large scale projects.

Once the main problems have been identified, solutions and management procedures can be developed.

One published scheme is BS 7000 - 1999, 'Design management systems'.

3. What Went Wrong?

The original estimate for the cost of development etc. was about £175 million (1960's) the actual cost was at least £800 million.

Concorde was an aluminium plane and there was only a small amount of new materials technology involved. There were some novel features in the control systems, for example the jet engines can only accept sub-sonic air entry and this had to be provided for. A major problem with Concorde was that it was a joint French and British project, with some parts manufactured in each country then assembled. There was jealousy and bickering about the division of work. There was a lack of strong top level management.

The management needs of a multinational project have been taken on board by the aerospace industry and the Airbus consortium is now a competitive manufacturer of civil aircraft.

This was a US designed single engine jet fighter from the 1960's. It weighed about 6 tons and was generally acknowledged to be short of wing area and if the engine failed while flying at low altitude there was little time for the pilot to escape. The german Luftwaffe bought a version of this plane, but they wanted some additional weapons / features, which brought the weight up to about 9 tons. They did nothing about the wings. It flew, just, but became known as the 'widow maker' as about 1/4 of those bought by the Luftwaffe crashed, often killing the pilot. Engine failure resulted in a gliding performance little better than that of a house brick.

The construction was done to budget (about £50 million) but hundreds of millions £ have been lost. The marketing had clearly been flawed and the design of the attractions and visitor control left a lot to be desired. Two major previous exhibitions, in 1850 and 1950, had been commercially successful, but they both had much clearer aims and target audiences. The aims of the millenium dome were put in far too general terms and a large proportion of the general public was not interested in seeing the attractions.

Looking at designs that have gone wrong shows that many defence projects still try to do the same as the Luftwaffe did with the Starfighter i.e. they want more features added, as cheaply as possible, at some point after the the design should have been 'frozen'. This is virtually guaranteed to cause major problems.

Lack of understanding about the target market, what potential customers want and the project aims, are problems with some commercial projects.

4. Solutions

4.1. One person must be given clear overall responsibility for a design project.

4.2. A concurrent (or simultaneous) engineering approach should be taken, with a design project team including people with a full range of skills - both technical and non - technical.

4.3 Fully involve key suppliers and the customer at all stages. This minimises the chance for misunderstandings.

4.4. A freeze date must be set and after this date no changes should be permitted. This is the one that many defence and government projects don't adhere to. But even minor changes have a habit of giving rise to unforseen consequences, leading to lateness and excess costs. In a surprising proportion of cases, if a significant change is needed, it will be less costly to abandon the project.

4.5. Conduct regular design reviews to check that the original intent of the project is still being followed and to see if any aspect is giving cause for concern.

4.6. Work to an appropriate standard, eg BS 7000, Design Management Systems, Part 2. Guide to managing the design of manufactured products.

Other parts of this deal with:

• Part 1 - Guide to managing innovation
• Part 3 - Guide to managing service design
• Part 4 - Guide to managing design in construction
• Part 10 - Glossary

5.1 BS 7000 - Part 2 - 1997
This deals with managing the design of manufactured products at the corporate level and at the project level and then goes into detail.

5.2 The Corporate Level
At he corporate level the responsibility for design excellence should be owned at the highest level and senior executives should demonstrate an understanding of their role and responsibilities. Responsibilities of others should be clearly communicated. Corporate design philosophies, objectives, strategies and programmes must be agreed and published.
Design should be considered in all major plans and documented as appropriate. The emergence of new markets and forecasts should be complemented by assessment of current products to ensure that there are no gaps. Part of this assessment is to carry out analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). Plans should be communicated effectively both to people within the organisation and to stakeholders outside.

The key issues at corporate level are:

• a) design rseponsibility and leadership
• b) positioning, visibility and integration of design
• c) design philosophy and strategy formulation
• d) auditing corporate design and design management practices
• e) the degree of centralisation in managing dsign
• f) establishing and maintaining corporate design standards and guidelines
• g) the environmental dimension of design
• h) the legal dimension of design
• i) the establishment and nurturing of a corporate design team
• j) design awareness and design management skills development programmes
• k) introducing appropriate technology
• l) assessment of opportunities and risks attached to investments in design
• m) the funding of design activities
• n) design and the manifestation of corporate identity
• o) the evaluation of the contribution of design to corporate performance

Currently environmental aspects are becoming increasingly important and a 'cradle to the grave' approach is necessary with everything from the sources of raw materials to final disposal and recycling needing to be considered. (g) above can be expanded - this will involve the following:

• a reduction of energy during manufacturing processes
• a reduction of their products' consumption of energy during use
• a reduction of material waste - eg during manufacture and in packaging
  There are some contrasting approaches in this area:
  Some manufacturers pack components in trays (with minimal packaging) to discourage goods being stacked as this easily leads to damage if containers are stacked too high;
  However some low cost stores have virtually no shelving and their stock is displayed in piles of boxes with the top most one opened for the custokmers to access the goods!
• a reduction or elimination of adverse impacts on the environment through emissions and discharge of waste
• the simplification or optimisation of fabrication and assembly procedures - eg by reducing unneccessary variety in materials and components used
• improvements in the perfomance of bought - in materials, components and equipment as well as the performance of suppliers
• the identification of uses for the by - products of the manufacturing processes
• the introduction of recycling of materials and spent components
• the continuity of a product range allowing compatibility when upgrading without the need to replace
• the extension of the durability and life of products by designing for refurbishment and designing out unneccessary obsolescence
• increasing the efficiency of distribution by reducing size, and improving stackability and storage
• the containment or reduction of costs - including those of disposal

5.3 Managing Design at Project Level
The early stages of a design project are usually the lowest cost part of the project - however it is during this stage that most of the key management decisions are made and where the bulk of the finance is committed. This is illustrated in the schematic graph below:

The above figure shows that it is critical to make good decisions at the early stages of a project. Also early identification and resolution of potential problems will save considerable time and costs in later stages.
Where possible stages of the process should be carried out concurrently, with all interested functions participating. Concurrent (or simultaneous) working will produce significant savings and benefits.

The main phases of a project are shown below:

• Concept - new initiatives may be market pull or technology push
• Feasibility - availability of resources, synergy with existing products, estimated costs, refine product characteristics - develop a functional specification, work programme and review
• Implementation - detail design, testing, provision for manufacture and delivery
• Termination - decomisioning and disposal

5.4 Managing the Design in More Detail
A key task is identifying all significant work elements and organising how they are to be tackled. Key to the success of the project is the appointment of a team leader / manager, who should remain throughout the project to maintain continuity. Other personnel with appropriate expertise may be brought in as and when needed. The main responsibilities of the leader are:

• contribute to the overall plan and programme the design activities
• prepare a business forecast capable of meeting corporate policy
• be directly responsible for all aspects of the project
• ensure that effective communication and decision making systems are applied
• form the design team
• formulate overall targets
• collate cost and time data
• monitor and report progress
• agree priorities
• select or approve the use of external specialists
• be the focal point for communication, inside and outside the team
• resolve differences of opinion and any conflicts and make appropriate decisions

Team meetings should be organised on a round table basis to facilitate lateral communication, ideally attendance should be limited to less than 10 members to maintain communication efficiency. The outcomes of both formal and informal communications should be recorded.

Stages in the design process are:

• Inception - everyone in an organisation should be encouraged to generate new ideas for new products
• Analysis of oppoertunities - these should be considered against corporate objectives, plans and resources
• Analysis of business concepts - should be assessed against corporate objectives, suitable concepts should be developed further
• Project formulation - the outcome of this stage should be a preliminary definition of a new project and a project proposal
• Feasibility study - should consider resources and check that the proposal satisfies the original requirements and still conforms to corporate objectives
• Refine characteristics - a complete product design brief (functional specification) should be produced
• Develop project configuration - the project plan is produced which details the work programme and necessary resources
• Evaluation and sanctioning - only when at least one achievable detail design solution is created is the project feasible from the design aspect. The project should be fully reviewed
• Implementation - assemble the design team - a multidisciplinary team should be assembledbased on required skills and political considerations. The role of each team member should be specified, agreed and understood
• Concept design - should provide a picture of what the product will look like
• General arrangement design - the product is structurally develped
• Detailed design - detailed specifications and designs are agreed
• Provision for manufacture and delivery - should detail the means by which the product is manufactured and delivered. This is the most expensive stage of the process
• Introduction and product launch
• Selling and use
• Feedback - having gained experience of customer feedback problems should be identified and fed back into a programme of continuous improvement
• Evaluation
• Termination
• Disposal

5.5 Control and Verification
The project manager should maintain control. Appropriate records should be kept and the status and distribution of working documents controlled in accordance with a formal management system (see BS EN ISO 9001 and BS ISO 10007).
All aspects of the work should be reviewed regularly to ensure that work is progressing appropriately and that potential difficulties can be identified early on and appropriate action taken. It is also important to check that no requirements have been overlooked or misunderstood.

6. References
1. Design Management Systems - Part 2. Guide to managing the design of manufactured products, BS 7000: Part 2: 1997. ISBN: 0 580 27159 5.
2. 'Innovation Management and New Product Development', P Trott, Pearson Education, 2002, ISBN: 0273655604.