所谓的集成产品开发(IPD)

        因为要去面试一个流程管理的岗位，涉及到IPD，所以做了点功课，这公司内部多年前的一个blog，内容上不涉及business confidential，所以转载到这里来共享。

        对于IPD这套流程管理系统的实践，IBM可以说是鼻祖，对90年代IBM的起死回生起到了很关键的作用，后来听说华为请了IBM作为顾问，全套搬了过去，然后华为自己又不断地改进使之符合自身的需要。

正文：

 

Called Integrated Product Development

 

Integrated Product Development (IPD). Simply put, IPD is a systematic process for product development that requires input from sales, marketing and the supply chain, including manufacturing, logistics, procurement and fulfillment. Its goal is to bring a solution, whether its hardware, software or a service, to market to satisfy client needs and to make bottom-line results more predictable and profitable.

 

(Integrated Product Development)

As with many processes at IBM, product development can be summarized using a three letter acronym called Integrated Product Design (IPD). Simply put, IPD is a systematic process for product development that requires input from sales, marketing and the supply chain, including manufacturing, logistics, procurement and fulfillment. Its goal is to bring a solution, whether its hardware, software or a service, to market to satisfy client needs and to make bottom-line results more predictable and profitable. The IPD team based approach ensures throughout the checkpoint process that all factors in the development of a solution throughout its lifecycle are considered before it goes to market.

 

Working in a Vacuum

Prior to IPD, like many manufacturing organizations, engineering worked in a silo developing products and then throwing them over the wall to marketing and sales. This was IBM's problem in the early 90's. We were funding products that were either not meeting the needs of the marketplace or that never saw the outside of a laboratory and when you are filing 30,000 patents over 10 years you want some assurances that they are going to be viable opportunities. Secondly, product cost and quality was hampered by a lack of consistency and commonality across our 30 internal individual supply chains. This had a huge impact on product design because we were not able to leverage the cost and quality benefits of a common building block process aligned to a standard set of preferred suppliers.

 

IPD in Practice

With more than 78,000 products IBM uses the IPD process frequently. For example in the late 90's we used IPD to introduce a new IBM ThinkPad laptop to Japan. During the concept stage, sales and marketing research revealed that Japanese clients prefer paper based packaging versus plastic packaging due to environmental concerns. To avoid the use of plastic packaging, IBM's engineering team had to either identify a new type of non-plastic packaging design or change the actual design of the ThinkPad to make it more durable for shipping. After running a series of fragility tests with paper cushioning engineering determined that the hard drive would have an increased failure rate since paper packaging provided less shock absorption then plastic. Since plastic wasn't an option engineering went back to the drawing board to take a closer look at the design. After running a series of tests they discovered that they could reconfigure the mounting of the hard drive to allow for paper based cushioning without forfeiting durability. Again following the IPD process, engineering worked with procurement to sign an agreement with a new packaging supplier for the new paper cushioning, who would also provide paper packaging tape instead of cellophane. The results were impressive. IBM ended up with a smaller ThinkPad box that cost less to ship, achieving $2 million in savings. The smaller box also improved shipping efficiencies by 50% by fitting more on each pallet. Without IPD this product launch would have been a failure from the beginning simply due to the packaging. IPD succeeded by breaking down the silos that are often found between sales, marketing and manufacturing and required them to work together.

 

So to break this down using the IPD process:

• Concept Phase - marketing and sales made engineering, packaging and global logistics understand the environmental issues
• Plan Phase -procurement opened contracts with local suppliers that could provide the paper based packaging and tape and engineering worked with manufacturing on the new mounting specifications.
• Develop - working with the hard drive supplier, engineering reconfigured the hard drive mounting to make it withstand the hazards of shipping
• Quality - packaging, engineering and manufacturing tested the durability of the new remounted hard drive and the new paper based packaging
• Launch - the product began shipping on time and complied with local customs

 

Measuring Success & Best Practices

By 1998, IPD was fully implemented across the IBM Company and since then it has achieved consistent impressive results. Since the transformation began in the early 90's IBM was able to reduce its list of suppliers by half to 33,000. This was more then just getting economies of scale. By driving commonality across the different IBM brands and increasing parts reuse to 63%, we improved product quality by reusing proven, quality designs from trusted partners. Abandoned project expenses decreased from 25% to less than 2% and time to market improved three to four times across all our eServer platforms not to mention quantum leaps in operational efficiency. IPD was the catalyst that made this happen.

 

The IPD process has been replicated at IBM client sites and has achieved similar results. Based on our own lesson learned the key enabled is executive support. In this case we had it from the CEO. Communication is also essential in dealing with culture clashes. We utilized the IBM Intranet, town hall meetings and conference calls to explain the value in IPD and why it's so important to the future of IBM. If an employee wasn't using the IPD process it wasn't their fault, because it just meant that we didn't do a good enough job of selling it. IPD enabled us to become market driven with clearer customer centric processes, when previously we were driven by our own hubris. It also broke down the silos and relied on our ability to work as a cross functional teams to execute. And finally benchmarking. We measured progress with key targets while benchmarking ourselves against the industry. This is crucial in understanding where you are and where you are going.

 

The world of on demand is predicated on constant change and rising customer expectations. So the work for IPD is still not complete, particularly as IBM's products become more complex integrating services, software and hardware into tightly woven business solutions that clients demand. The IPD team continues to improve the product development process by improving supply chain collaboration particularly with the web of suppliers, external contractors and business partners that are part of IBM's $40 billion global supply chain. Even though our supply chain is located in more than 60 countries around the world further improvements can be achieved by the further sharing of data from the very beginning of the product development process all the way to the end of life of the product. This data has to be collected and sorted in a way that makes it immediately useful to everyone in the extended supply chain so no matter where they are, they can make informed decisions.

 

From the time a product idea is conceived to the time it reaches the customer, even the most basic decisions ripple throughout the extended supply chain. IBM needs to continue to refine its infrastructure, to adapt to the changing environment, and to ensure decisions we make along the way guarantee the quality and competitiveness of our products are second to none. With the IPD track record to date, it's a realistic goal.

 

 

 

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