초록 ▼

An in-depth review of a product line is conducted, including customer interviews, in order to identify customer specifications that are more complex than customer needs. Customer needs are quantified, and a reduced set of standard product configuration classes are selected so that about 80% of custo

An in-depth review of a product line is conducted, including customer interviews, in order to identify customer specifications that are more complex than customer needs. Customer needs are quantified, and a reduced set of standard product configuration classes are selected so that about 80% of customer orders based on actual customer needs can be satisfied by the standard product configuration classes, and the remaining orders can be satisfied by custom design. Major components in the standard products are themselves standardized. Manufacture of the standard product is optimized for a one-day manufacturing cycle and separated from the manufacture of the custom designed product. A sales office and manufacturing plant roll-out schedule is implemented and managed by computer-based spreadsheet tools. A product configuration computer program module is interfaced between a product selector and a materials management (MRP) system in order to automate the process of entering orders, designing the standard product, ordering parts, and scheduling assembly of standard product.

대표청구항 ▼

[ What is claimed is:] [34.] A method of re-engineering a product line comprising the steps of:a) interviewing individual customers to identify and understand actual needs of the individual customers beyond what the customers indicate in product specifications;b) from the actual needs of the individ

[ What is claimed is:] [34.] A method of re-engineering a product line comprising the steps of:a) interviewing individual customers to identify and understand actual needs of the individual customers beyond what the customers indicate in product specifications;b) from the actual needs of the individual customers beyond what the customers indicate in product specifications, revising product specifications to more closely correspond to actual needs of groupings of customers;c) identifying a subset of product configurations that in various combinations satisfy a majority of the actual needs of the groupings of customers;d) standardizing and streamlining a process of ordering and manufacturing standard designs from the subset of product configurations;e) revising a process of custom design and manufacture of non-standard configurations to maximize use of standard components used in the manufacturing of standard designs;f) integrating a product configuration system for automatic configuration of the standard designs into a computer system having a product selector for standard and custom products;g) performing custom design to satisfy customer orders of products in said product line that are excluded from the subset of product configurations, and performing automatic configuration to satisfy customer orders of products in said product line that are included in the subset of product configurations; andh) manufacturing a product using either said custom design or said automatic configuration.