Product Life Cycle ( PLC) | Words of Engineer

  
Product Life Cycle ( PLC) 

 In our busy lives, we use thousands of products on everyday basis. Have you ever wondered about product life cycle? Like human being, product too have their life cycle phases. PLC defines the complete cycle of product from its launch in market to elimination from the market. PLC is one of the important concepts for companies to decide/approve company products portfolio expansion, reviewing the scope of product or to verify products success in market, etc.

 The general phases in product life cycles are namely - 

1. Introduction

2. Growth

3. Maturity

4. Decline

   Above are the typical life phases of the product but it is not guaranteed that every product will attend all the phases. The performance of product is depends upon its need, demand and other factors too play a vital role in product life cycle and they are seen from a market point of view but there are lot more activities happens before product launched in market, as an engineer, we should aware about those behind the scenes. All the things happens behind the Introduction stage are falls in stage called as Pre-Introduction Phase.

So, for engineering perspective, typical product life cycle consists of -

1. Pre-Introduction

2. Introduction

3. Growth

4. Maturity

5. Decline

As you seen in illustration, additional Stage shown and named as 'Extension Phase. This phase can be achieved by continuous improvement in product,excellence in service,improving sales and marketing strategies.

Engineering Design Process | Words of Engineer

Engineering Design Process

We all studied general engineering design process,that consists of below steps -

1 - Find Problem or Need
2 - Gather required information
3 - Find all possible alternative solutions
4 - Select Best solution among them
5 - Build the solution (Prototype)
6 - Test and evaluate solution
7 - If result is satisfactory then release solution, if not repeat steps from 1 to 6.

But in actual engineering design process,there many steps involved and every organisation have their own engineering design process, almost similar to each other with the foundation of general engineering design process.

 Here, I'm writing about engineering design process I understood from my experience.

Flow Chart -1

Explanation -

1. As shown in flow chart, firstly customer approaches multiple organizations by providing some requirements of product needed for their vehicle. Let's say, OEM requires tires for their new vehicle, so OEM will approach different organizations having expertise in tire manufacturing.

2. After receiving the request and basic requirements, tire manufacturer starts engineering activities and create concept drawing, CAD model of new tire and submit it to OEM for review.

3. OEM reviews the concept design. If design approved, they provide detailed tire requirements of vehicle to selected tire manufacturing company. If design not approved, tire manufacturing company still has chance to submit another concept design unless and until OEM did not approve any other tire manufacturers concept design.

4. Considering concept design approved scenario we will understand next steps. After receiving detailed requirements tire manufacturer starts working on detail drawing. As product (tire) manufacturer, they are responsible for all engineering design calculation & validation, but OEM also takes part in this.

5. Now, after engineering design validation, tier manufacturer submits final detailed prototype design drawings to OEM for review.

6. If any design changes received, that changes need to accommodate and re-submit the updated Prototype design drawings to OEM. If no design changes received from OEM, tire manufacturers are ready to release Prototype drawings and prototype build is carried out.

7.After prototype build, there are tested in engineering labs as well as actual field environment where final vehicle will be in operation.

8. If results vary from requirements all the activities from detail prototype drawing to engineering lab and field test will be carried out again until the results meet the requirements. If both the engineering lab and actual field results meets the desired vehicle requirements, all prototype drawings are released for production.

Part Development Track Template | Program Management Tool | Words of Engineer

Part Development Track Template 

After Bill of materials of product has been finalised,it will be released in engineering product data management and ERP systems.Product engineer hold the ownership and responsibility to create a part development track template of product using released Bill of materials and only authorised person to update any changes in it.

As we know for successful launch of product, Program management is responsible to keep an eye on the status of each aspect of the program,to facilitate this every company create standard tracking or monitoring templates for important program aspects. So,this is one of the standard templates with the main objective to provide purchase engineers a single glance view of the parts to plan purchasing activity and for project management team to track/monitor the purchasing status of all required parts.

Basically, this is one of the tools of program management which consist of all parts needed to build a final product with details like part level, part number,part name,qty,parts item commodity,make or buy decision, drawing release ,PR,RFQ,PO,PPAP statuses of all parts.

For prototype stage,all parts must be available before the scheduled proto build dates to avoid a launch schedule delay or the probable business losses.

Below shown simplest part development track template format shows the engineering, purchase and quality department tracking points, if required we can add other functional departments tracking points also.