Publications Details
Achieving agility through parameter space qualification
The A-primed (Agile Product Realization of Innovative electro-Mechanical Devices) project is defining and proving processes for agile product realization for the Department of Energy complex. Like other agile production efforts reported in the literature, A-primed uses concurrent engineering and information automation technologies to enhance information transfer. A unique aspect of our approach to agility is the qualification during development of a family of related product designs and their production processes, rather than a single design and its attendant processes. Applying engineering principles and statistical design of experiments, economies of test and analytic effort are realized for the qualification of the device family as a whole. Thus the need is minimized for test and analysis to qualify future devices from this family, thereby further reducing the design-to-production cycle time. As a measure of the success of the A-primed approach, the first design took 24 days to produce, and operated correctly on the first attempt. A flow diagram for the qualification process is presented. Guidelines are given for implementation, based on the authors experiences as members of the A-primed qualification team.