Savvy Lean Product Development Conference VIII
“Knowledge Wins and Drives Sustainable Improvement”
March 3-4, 2009 Chicago

Superior Value:

- “Knowledge rich” break out sessions -

The Savvy Consortium© presents the Lean Product Development Conference VIII. This eighth Savvy Conference offers the highest value new product design and development conference in North America. Its Chicago location near O'Hare is the most convenient for North American and Europe based product development centers.

The presenters are experienced engineering managers from a variety of product-market industries. They are simultaneously managing new product pipeline throughput, while adapting “lean” elements that sustain critical improvements in their people and systems productivity. Each presenter will describe “knowledge based” product development system elements, which some call “lean.” They will detail how they design and adapt their own best practices that constantly improve people competence, reduce design risk, improve design robustness and meet their schedules.

These product engineering managers’ presentations offer rich, practical, experiential knowledge. The content is based the speakers’ “lived experiences” adapting the thinking behind fourteen principles, five pillars, the six virtues of trusted leadership and several tools/practices. These are the hallmarks of “Knowledge Based product development and R&D system. Found in a growing variety of high performance product development organizations, this is patterned after the model “Lean” Product Development System that helped Toyota grow to the top market share in its industry. It is the system that Toyota must now improve on in order to develop design solutions and sustain process improvements to avoid their spate of current design problems in the future.

“Knowledge Based” best describes the Product Development System’s essence and its positive, motivating and sustaining impact on engineering design people and their work.

NEW SESSIONS! This Savvy conference offers valuable breakout learning sessions to generate useful knowledge. Groups of participants will discuss problems and add ‘drill down’ knowledge to their notes from the speaker presentations. Sessions start at approximately 11 AM and 4 PM each day, following the morning and afternoon speaker presentations.

Savvy Conference speakers make every effort to help you understand how the knowledge based product development system works in their organizations.

Day 1 - Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Confirmed Speakers:

9 AM NEXEN, INC. “Use Value Propositions to Satisfy Customer Value Expectations and Eliminate Development Waste”

David Hein, Vice President

In early 05, Dave Hein implemented changes in his Nexen Design Engineering Organization. His engineers quickly learned how to understand and use new product value propositions to drive their design efforts. Dave will describe how his engineers:

• verify customers’ value expectations during customer visits.

• developed their customer value distribution tool.

• evolve a best practice called ‘the value proposition tool.’

10 AM GOODRICH, INC. “Customers Define Value; Use A3 Tools”

Tim Matuseski - Director of Engineering

Tom Hack, Manager - Engine & Temperature COE Sensors Systems

Tim Matuseski and Tom Hack will describe their experiences using several “lean” principles and tools to engage customers and eliminate wasted efforts to reduce product cost.

Tom will discuss how A3s were used to drive product cost proposals in a unique way and to involve a customer in defining critical value that the customer cares about. Tim will describe his organization’s lived experiences with A3s and lessons lived and learned from their customer interface experiences. They will identify several impacts on people, process and tools that helped show how this initiative produces best practices and continuous improvement. They will develop a visual of their system and how it is maturing in their constant improvement initiatives.

Adapting and using A3 thinking, practices and tools are necessary for continuous improvement in knowledge based product development.

11 AM Savvy Work/Learn Breakout Session “Introduce Customer Value and Eliminate Non Value Added Work – Simultaneously”

Following the speaker presentations, participants will meet in small group sessions to discuss sustainable practices for adapting the customer value focus tools and methods. Understanding customer value expectations that eliminates non value added work is a priority issue. Speakers’ participation will add valuable “what to try” savvy to this discussion.

1 PM NASA “Knowledge Tree at NASA Rocket Systems Engineering”

Bryan Fraser - John Glenn Research Center

The Wright Brothers, pioneered airplane product design by using problem solving management principles along with a “Learn before design” mentality which prefigure knowledge based product development. The Wrights understood that they had three design problems to  solve: aircraft flotation, aircraft propulsion and aircraft control. They therefore became expert in systems design. Their work was based on the maxim ‘know before you design and test.

Building on the legacy of the Wright brothers, Bryan Fraser will speak about developing knowledge based lean system design engineering. He will detail his experiences in the technical knowledge generating community that supports the Aries Rocket design system.

Supported by ten NASA technical knowledge generation centers, Bryan will describe how they

1. “seed, grow, and branch” the knowledge.
2. manage the “fruits” of the knowledge
3. apply the knowledge to achieve: performability, deliverability , usability, maintainability, durability
4. build on and document the technical knowledge.

Knowledge “tree” management is necessary for product performance and for constant improvement that achieves personal excellence in design and development of technical systems.

2:45 PM “Pursue Personal Excellence in Design Engineering”

Dr. Deborah Savage,  University of St. Thomas

Virtue based behaviors are vital pre-requisites for product development people adapting knowledge based product design and development systems.

Deborah Savage personally supervised both Asian and Western workers in “clean room” production facilities at several major semi-conductor manufacturing companies, including Monolithic Memories, Advanced Micro-Devices, Honeywell, Onan and other corporations.

Deborah observed an amazing capacity for excellence, constant improvement in technical knowledge and attention to quality in these workers.

Deborah researched this phenomenon, discovered the Confucian virtues tradition and saw the link between personal virtue and professional success that these workers (in particular, the Japanese) displayed in implementing quality management methods and constant improvement practices.

In contrast, the work ethic in the West is more concerned with industriousness, with “keeping busy,” and heroic fire fighting than it is with the pursuit of personal excellence. It is this factor, and not the refinement of techniques and methods, that has made the widespread success with the Toyota system in America so elusive.

Deborah’s management experiences with workers of both cultures and her subsequent research into the factors that contribute to work place excellence reveal that it is the pursuit of personal excellence, specifically the Western virtues, that is the prerequisite for achieving excellence in design and product quality.

Deborah Savage will introduce six personal virtues from the Western virtues tradition that drive personal behaviors in the pursuit of excellence. She will describe practical ways for design/development workers to:

• “seed, grow, and branch” the knowledge.
• manage the “fruits” of the knowledge
• apply the knowledge to achieve: performability, deliverability , usability, maintainability, durability
• build on and document the technical knowledge.

3:45 PM Savvy Work/Learn Breakout Session “Introduce and Sustain Virtues for the Pursuit of Excellence”

Following the speaker presentations, participants will meet in small group sessions to discuss the six virtues as pre-requisites for sustainable improvement. Sustainable improvement in technical knowledge waste, hoarding and flow will be discussed. Also for discussion: Trusted leaders and virtues are necessary for individuals to trust themselves and their leaders in sustainable improvement.

Best practice options for adapting and sustaining “the six virtues that generate sustaining improvement” will be the useful takeaways from this session.

5 PM Conference Knowledge: Make a “Best” Checklist

Day 2 - Thursday, March 4, 2010

9 AM DELUXE CORPORATION “Leadership Drives Constant Improvement”

Angela Hendershott, Senior Manager - Product Engineering

Angela Hendershott will describe the experiences and timeline of dedicated people who learned and adapted the thirteen principles of lean, flexible product development. Angela will highlight more recent experiences and the turning points that raised the organization’s understanding of the lean/flexible system, generated the energy and passion needed by individuals and teams to achieve the next level of excellence in their work.

Angela will focus on five initiatives that currently drive the transformation.  She will describe how the people in her organization are building on existing process, tools and practices. Angela will describe how she changed her daily task focus to lead the transformation and the “lessons lived.” She will point out several ‘back to basics’ practices as the building blocks to continuous improvement best practices.

10 AM JOHN DEERE “Manage Critical Knowledge”

David W. Gregor, Manager - Knowledge Systems

David Gregor will describe the principles of technical knowledge management that are building John Deere’s system for ‘retention of critical knowledge’ ROCK. The sheer volume of knowledge generated in this world class design and development organization by high performance people is the major opportunity for constant improvement. David will describe the daily hurdles and experiences that the people at John Deere encounter to constantly improve their technical knowledge management practices.

11 AM Savvy Work/Learn Breakout Session “Embed Virtues and Principles that Engage People and Sustain Adaptation of Knowledge Based Systems”

Following the speaker presentations, participants will meet in small group sessions. Participants will discuss problems and solution options. The problems include ”Hoarding” technical knowledge, individual indifference to technical knowledge waste. Speakers’ participation will add valuable “how to” savvy to this session.

1 PM BRUNO SYSTEMS, INC. “Adapting Knowledge Based Thinking to an Agile Product Development Process”

Bill Belson, Director of Product Development Engineering

Bill Belson leads the product design group that designs lift systems used by people with physical impairments to help them get in and out of their mini vans. The Bruno products must meet the approval of Toyota and the FDA for use by this target market. The Bruno organization became interested in lean systems for their enterprise. Bill will present he led his design group in their evaluation of knowledge based lean product design systems. He will detail how they challenged themselves to initiate key elements such as customer visits, A3 problem solving and other value added tools. Bill will describe how he helped the organization fit this new NPD system to its product development project management practices and aligned it with its constant improvement goals. Challenging a product development organization and each individual to embark on constant improvement by adapting new thinking and practices is the essential ingredient for user focused new product development.

2 PM  ”Create a Technology Knowledge Generation System”

Sam Landers, Senior Fellow R&D

Technology Creation generates the technical knowledge needed before funding product development projects. Technology knowledge is a prerequisite to “learn before design” set based concurrent engineering system practices. Sam Landers’ has developed a “thinking process” model for technology knowledge creation. Sam Lander’s model of the Technology Creation Process (TCP) shows manage technical knowledge generation, push-pull,  flow and timeline.  This TCP model aligns with gated compliance/control systems familiar to product development pipeline managers. TCP creates knowledge flow that  aligns with technology goals, meets schedules, reduces waste and generates robust technical knowledge needed before engineering design should start. Sam  will describe his model for  technical knowledge  generation and show visuals.  Technology Creation practices are necessary for constantly  improving the way corporations feed technology knowledge into their “learn before design” knowledge based product development system.

3 PM Goodyear Corp. “Make Technical Knowledge Flow Personal - the Mentor Model ”

Barbara Medkeff, Manager

Experience supports the research findings that large amounts of TECHNICAL knowledge resides exclusively in the brains of individuals. Getting that technical knowledge from one individual into the heads and hands of other individuals is necessary in value added, waste free, high performance product development organizations.

Mentoring is a vital way to generate and sustain technical knowledge flow in a high performance product design engineering organizations. Barb Medkeff will describe her experiences with the mentoring model for constant improvement in knowledge based product development at Goodyear. She will describe experiences with three types of mentors.. She will demonstrate the mentors’ impact on the productivity of technical knowledge workers. on problem solving, functional skill building, stress management, collaboration effectiveness and more. Helping people adapt new behaviors in knowledge management by involving and engaging people in the mentoring practice is essential for sustaining high performance engineering competence that results in competitive advantage.

4 PM Savvy Work/Learn Breakout Session “The Mentor Model for Technical Knowledge Flow”

Following the speaker presentations, participants will meet in small group sessions. Participants will discuss problems and solution options for technical knowledge flow: person to person, head to head. Options for “What to try” and “what could work” will be the useful takeaways from this session.

Savvy Conference speakers make every effort to help you understand how the knowledge based product development system works in their organizations and leads to sustained improvements.

5:30 PM Make a “Best Knowledge” Checklist Conclusion

Best Practices / Key Principles of Lean New Product Development - the Knowledge Factors

Savvy Conference Proceedings Content will include the speaker presentations which comprise principles of excellence, best practices and valuable tools that are critical to sustaining improvement:

• Understanding what customers are doing

• Product Concept Value Propositions

• A3s used in constant improvement management practices

• A3 visual documents

• Learn before design

• Set based design concurrent engineering

• Towering engineering competence development

• Process problem solving rigor

• Obeya visual for project team space for daily decisions-actions

• Waste reduction that improves productivity

• Project management using the chief engineer model

• Waste reduction that improves productivity

• Project management using the chief engineer model

• Waste elimination via value stream mapping

• Convergent design decision making process

• Lamda learning cycle: Look-Ask-Model-Discuss-Act

• Pull/push knowledge flow management

• Project leader focus on customers’ value expectations

• Trusted Leaders focused on constant improvement

High performance product development organizations are adapting the above as they transform to Lean, Flexible and Agile Product Development process, now known as “Knowledge Based” product development systems. The organizations are transforming their thinking/practices from a transaction/gated, processed focused, management control method to a high competence, high performance knowledge worker organization. NPD performance improvement cannot happen without these principles, practices, tools and trusted leadership.

Savvy Consortium Lean Product Development Conference VIII
Wednesday-Thursday, March 3-4, 2010

Marriott Courtyard - Elmhurst
370 N Route 83 -SHORT TAXI RIDE FROM O'HARE-
Chicago, IL 60126

Why Attend Savvy Conference VIII?

Savvy Conference speakers make every effort to help you understand how the knowledge based product development system works in their organizations.

Savvy Conference attendees share their experiences as adapters of the system that sustain improvements in their people and process.

You are sure to:

Learn how others are designing innovative new products and constantly improving their organizations and systems, successfully and simultaneously.

Generate management savvy and “street sense” practices that you can confidently adapt in your organization – and know it works.

Get timely knowledge you need to confidently improve, to find opportunities for better market focus and to reduce waste.

Meet engineering managers from a variety of product development engineering organizations who are solving problems, sustain improvement, build trust and meet their schedules simultaneously.

DO NOT MANAGE Product Development and try to improve your organization ALONE IN 2010! Collaborate with others.

All of this is yours at the Savvy Consortium’s Conference VIII, North America’s only semi-annual lean product development management conference with the richest tradition of deep, practical, experiential knowledge generated by product development engineering managers. March 3-4, 2010 Chicago near O'Hare.

“Knowledge Wins and Drives Sustainable Improvement”

Event content, presentation materials and presenters may change without notice, but with intent to maintain or increase quality and relevance.