The PMBOK(Project Management Institute Book of Knowledge) Guide states that project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements. Having a good plan, experienced PM, and excellent team is essential to great project management performance.  Managing project risks is key to success. Good project management decisions are vital to project success. To achieve this goal, you need good project management leadership.

This paper describes an example of a good decision and a bad decision of good project management leadership. The examples are about integrating manufacturing engineer into the design process to ensure the best producibility and reduce the risk of production problems. The project management principles described in this paper apply to all aspects of a project.

EXAMPLES OF GOOD AND BAD PROJECT MANAGEMENT 

DECISIONS

These examples demonstrate how important project management leadership is to the success of a project.  The focus of these examples is producibility, a very important aspect of a project to ensure the product is affordable and can be built to the design assumptions.

Most companies have policies and procedures for concurrent engineering but many are ineffective for various reasons resulting in poor implementation of improved producibility in their products. I have made this observation based on working for a variety of companies in different industries.  Two examples of different approaches I encountered are presented below.  One example shows bad project management leadership. The other example presents good project management leadership.

Example 1: Bad Project Management Leadership

A large defense company I worked for had an extensive concurrent engineering program. It worked as follows:

When a contract was awarded, one or two manufacturing engineers (depending on the size and complexity of the project) were assigned to the project to provide producibility support during the design phase.  They attended design review meetings typically starting with the PDR (Preliminary Design Review).  A PDR with the customer is held when approximately 60% of the drawings are completed. The purpose of the review, is to get the customers approval to go into the final design phase. As a member of the team, the manufacturing engineers  were required to review design documents and make comments.  They had no approval authority.  There were a few problems with this approach.

First problem: Getting the manufacturing engineers involved at the PDR level was too late because by that time the concept and the basic manufacturing approach had been cast in stone by virtue of the proposed design, concept approach, and the budget and schedule time incurred in developing the preliminary design.  As a result, most of the major producibility suggested changes were rejected by the team leader because “we are too far down the track to make the recommended changes”.  The only suggested changes accepted by the team leader were small. For example, increase a tolerance.  The manufacturing engineers need to be involved during the early stages of the project starting with the proposal, or at least during the concept definition phase.

Second problem: The lack of authority and sign off approval of the concept, PDR, and Critical Design Review (CDR). A CDR is held with the customer when 90% of the drawings are completed. The purpose of the review is to get the customers approval to complete the drawing for production.  The lack of authority resulted in giving lip service to the manufacturing engineers recommendations and not serious consideration. The recommendations were taken most of the time as comments and not mandatory changes to the design.  Manufacturing sign off authority for the design is essential to establishment of a good effective concurrent engineering program.

Third problem: Assigned manufacturing engineers many times were not qualified or experienced in incorporating producibility changes into a design.  The level of qualification and experience to a large extent reflects the company’s’ commitment to improved producibility. A top-down commitment from management is essential to establish an effective concurrent engineering program.

Example 2: Good Project Management Leadership

This defense company was smaller than the one in example no. 1.  Their approach corrected all the problems noted in example no. 1.  We won a large Navy contract for designing, fabricating, testing, and delivering hundreds of low-cost expendable acoustic training targets.  A qualified and experienced manufacturing engineer was assigned to the proposal team which included sign off authority on the proposed design.  As part of the proposal team, he created a preliminary assembly flow diagram showing assembly stations, inspection stations, and testing points. This was very helpful in generating the proposed cost and price. He was assigned to the project after the contract award providing very important continuity. The manufacturing engineer sat in on all the design review meetings and his comments were taken seriously because the team leader knew he needed his signature approval.  Execution of the contract went very well in large part due to the concurrent engineering effort invested into the project starting with the proposal.

Lessons learned

Two different concurrent engineering approaches are presented above. Each one is tailored to the company’s manufacturing process and the industry best practices.  As noted above, some are very good and effective while others may leave a lot to be desired. The lessons I learned from my experiences are:

1. Involve manufacturing in the design process starting with the proposal and continuing through concept development, PDR and CDR.
2. Provide manufacturing sign off authority at all phases of the design to ensure their recommendations are incorporated and not left in the minutes of the design review as just comments.
3. Assign qualified and experienced manufacturing engineer(s) to a project starting at the proposal phase. This will ensure that continuity, and meaningful and effective producibility features are incorporated into the design
4. Establish a company sponsored concurrent engineering training program to create a team of manufacturing engineer specialists that understand producibility methods resulting in real product improvement.

SUMMARY

These stories illustrate in one case managements poor concurrent engineering procedures and in the other case good concurrent engineering procedures .In the bad example, it highlights a management failure as well as a project manager leadership failure. Even though the project manager followed the company’s procedure, he/she should know the importance of concurrent engineering and the need to get them involved early in the project. Project management leadership is thinking outside the box to ensure the project risk is as low as possible. It is taking the initiative -not accepting the status quo.

Bio:

Currently John Ayers is an author, writer, and consultant. He authored a book entitled Project Risk Management. The first is a text book that includes all of the technical information you will need to become a Project Manager (PM). He authored a second book entitled How to Get a Project Management Job: Future of Work.  This book shows you how to get a PM job. Between the two, you have the secret sauce to succeed. There are links to both books on Amazon on his website. https://projectriskmanagement.info/. He has presented numerous Webinars on project risk management to PMI including one on June 16 that addresses how to merge Agile with Waterfall to arrive at a Hybrid method. He writes columns on project risk management for CERM (certified enterprise risk management). John also writes blogs for Association for Project Management (APM) in the UK. He has conducted a podcast on project risk management.  John has published numerous papers on project risk management and project management on LinkedIn. John also hosts the Project Manager Coach club on clubhouse.com.

John earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering and MS in Engineering Management from Northeastern University. He has extensive experience with commercial and U.S. DOD companies. He is a member of the Project Management Institute (PMI. John has managed numerous large high technical development programs worth in excessive of $100M. He has extensive subcontract management experience domestically and foreign.  John has held several positions over his career including: Director of Programs; Director of Operations; Program Manager; Project Engineer; Engineering Manager; and Design Engineer.  He has experience with: design; manufacturing; test; integration; subcontract management; contracts; project management; risk management; and quality control.  John is a certified six sigma specialist, and certified to level 2 Earned Value Management (EVM).

Go to his website above to find links to his books on Amazon and dozens of articles he has written on project and project risk management.