You have been asked to consult with a major tobacco company. It informed you that it has a product idea, but it does not want to tell you what it is, only that it is high-tech. Once you arrive at the headquarters in Richmond, the company takes you to tour the facilities, including the automated lines that make the cigarettes from the raw materials of tobacco and paper, then deliver the finished cigarette packs right into the delivery trucks. The lines are all dual input, so if one line is stopped for maintenance or breakdown, the other line instantly takes over. The company proudly mentions that all the design and assembly of the lines are made in-house with an excellent manufacturing automation internal engineering capability.
After some initial conversations, you realize that you guessed right. The company is thinking of an electronic or e-cigarette, which is a large task for a commodity company. It has excellent marketing and manufacturing engineering competencies, but it has have never developed a high-tech product. The company asks you to help in creating a development phase gate process, based on a QFD process it used to develop the new product specifications.
What are the phase/gate stages that you would recommend based on the following?
• The company has committed large resources and budgets into the project.
• It has a competent internal and professional engineering staff used for the design of automated lines. However, its engineers are not experienced in developing consumer products.
• The company has a large and active marketing/sales department.
• The company is not averse to subcontracting design or manufacturing, but it has concerns over trade secrets (not divulging the new product).
• It plans extensive consumer testing during the product development.
Write about the different phases/gates that you would propose to the board, including estimates of times to completion of each development phase and methods of project communication within the development team and the board.