Product Systemization: One Method to Help Save American Manufacturing

Systemization is the process of defining what range of products will be made and what range of production processes will be employed. Without product systemization, manufacturers will and have seen increases in operating costs especially for their made-to-order products.

Companies experience systemization issues in:

1) Engineering: Slow delivery in design of deliverables
(Many engineering hours in engineering different subcomponents)
2) Engineering: Slow cycle time and inefficiency when engineering custom orders
3) Sales and Marketing: Delays in turnaround on requests for proposals
4) Manufacturing: Delays and inaccuracy in creating designs and drawings
5) Corporate: Increased Operating Costs
6) Corporate: Decreased Profitability

If your company is experiencing any of these issues, you might NEED to consider a systemization effort in order to achieve:

• Operating cost reduction
• Faster product delivery
• Increased profitability.

As your organization considers product systemization, use this checklist below to help strategize and plan:

1. Identify all components. Identify the part/part family or products/product family that currently exist. Identify how they are used and the feature and/or benefit of using the component.
2. Justify the existence of all components.
3. Identify all redundant components.
4. Eliminate all redundant components. Rigorously drop all components that are duplicated.
5. Justify the existence of all components using only one product family.
6. Determine assemblies and sub-assemblies from justified parts.
7. Eliminate or at least create a plan to eliminate assemblies/sub-assemblies with redundant functionality (if possible).
8. Design engineering strategies.
9. Determine price breaks from the product’s supplier. For example, identify quantity discounts if a large quantity of one part is ordered, versus many smaller orders for many separate components.

If you need help, feel free to read The Consumer’s Workshop: The Future of American Manufacturing or contact me to see if we can help you.

Thanks,
Ben Moore
Agent Technologies, Inc.