Outsourcing

You hear a lot of static about "outsourcing". The first thoughts that comes to your mind are probably shipping a product design to China for manufacturing. While this is usually what happens, it is only one small aspect of outsourcing, and China is not the only place that gets our business. There is plenty of domestic (inter and intra-state) outsourcing going on as well. Toy companies for years have been shipping simple design artwork overseas, and allowing those molders to design the toy for manufacturability while still retaining the look of the original artwork. Of course you have probably noticed that some of these overseas companies are better than others due to the quality you see on our store shelves. As you can see, not only manufacturing but also design has been (and will continue to be) outsourced beyond our national boarders.

I'm not writing to praise or pounce on the virtues of outsourcing, foreign or domestic. I can't claim to know enough about the subject to make my mind up whether is it "good or bad" for America. I would rather discuss the finer details that one needs to be aware of when weighing the decision to outsource, speaking from a mechanical engineering perspective.

Outsourcing makes sense for a lot of companies. It allows a company to tap into specialties that do not reside in-house, or frees important resources for more critical actions. Have you ever hired a designer to make a business logo for you? Ever drove into one of those oil change shacks to get your oil changed? You've just committed "outsourcing" because you didn't have the required skills or didn't want to waste your time doing it yourself. Take this a step further, you are a manufacturer that makes a widget that uses hydraulic cylinders. The design of these cylinders are unique to your business (your IP (intellectual property)), and contrary to popular belief, business is doing great. You have reached capacity with your own manufacturing, and astute research by others in your organization have revealed that outsourcing the manufacturing of these cylinders makes financial sense. Outsourcing, great! Now what?

First you need to fully define your product requirements. I don't mean take a photo and email it, or crate up a cylinder and ship it off, asking your outsourcer to make "this" for you. You will need to quantifiably define the technical standards and performance requirements. Having measurable standards from which to inspect from will reduce the need to hand-hold your supplier in the long run.

Understand that internal personnel need to take on new responsibilities, or you need to hire people with these new skills if you want outsourcing to work. Your existing engineers will become project managers, system integrators, and specification writers. Your contract lawyers will become an important part of The Team. Your CAD jockeys will become the go-to people for file translation and database management. Discuss these changing roles, identify your weaknesses and plan accordingly.

Before your outsourcer gets started, have a Requirements Review meeting (or two or three) so both of you are on the same page and talking the same language about your product and expectations. Just because you specify a red coupe with shiny rims does not mean you will get a Lamborghini. Chances are you will get what was easiest for your outsourcer to deliver, a Kia (or worse yet, a used Yugo).

Hammer out a realistic Project Plan or Schedule. If you are outsourcing from overseas, don't forget to include time for boat transit time, customs, etc. Don't enter "1 day" for your internal inspection, it may take longer. Be sure to include/schedule internal review meetings. The sooner you identify where your supplier is lacking or where cost can be taken out of your product the better. Be sure to include/schedule teleconferences after you receive a deliverable so you can discuss with your supplier what they have done and what you are looking at.

Have a technical design review (preliminary, critical, etc) if your outsourced product warrants it. Double check those tolerance stack-ups, calculations, and margin analyses. Make sure your supplier conducted the proper studies and they are not over confident in their approach. Also, make sure they weren't too conservative, if they were, you just found an area of potential cost savings.

Look at the nuts and bolts, do this as a Product Readiness or Production Plan review. Are the facilities, equipment, material and labor force available to achieve this Plan? Is every adequately trained? In what quantities are you going to receive your product? A palletized gross makes no sense if your company is Lean and working one piece flow correctly. On the other hand it might make sense if your parts are small, and it makes financial sense if it came across the ocean in a shipping container. Then you should be asking who will warehouse this item, you or your supplier?

How do I DO what I do?

I was recently asked, "How do you Do what you do?" Huh? It took a moment for me to grok that question. Was I being asked about my workflow? Was I being asked to train others? Did someone think I was crazy or crazy-like-a-fox? As it turned out, the correct answer was "all of the above." I rambled through some explanation that satisfied my inquisitor, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to write something down for my own sake. You get the benefit of reading about here.

When I am faced with a design challenge the first thing I try to do is understand what the design scope is. For example, a customer might comment about a panel being flimsy.

1. They could be saying the panel is too flexible and are worried about drum-skinning.
2. They could be saying that it won't hold up in the user environment and want it more robust.
3. They could be saying that it just looks too cheap and are worried about user perceptions.

All three examples are covered by the "flimsy" comment above, and all three require different approaches in the design. Pick the wrong direction to precede and at a minimum you look like someone that doesn't know what they are doing. In the worst case, you or your employer just lost a customer. Design is a very subjective field, and the sooner a designer knows what the customer truly desires, the sooner a designer can create an item that will satisfy that customer. Of course there is a fine line between what the customer wants and what they need, but I'll save that for another topic. Ask questions, and make sure there are no Yes or No answers. Get your customer to paint a full picture for you.

When I am called to discuss a design I sit back, listen, and take notes. Usually there are others in the room that have spent a great deal on time on a project already, let them talk. They know their product or manufacturing capabilities, and combining the two can only yield one design outcome that they can see. These existing personnel are too close to the design, so close in fact they are married to it and can't see where improvements can be made. This is all right in the short term, at least they are showing some compassion for their work. Its hard to come into a situation like this, as I may be unfamiliar with the industry or the unique challenges that are encountered. The best thing to do is listen to all the arguments being presented, draw on my past experiences, and formulate something that tries to address all the issues. I'm there to provide a new perspective on the problem, collectively being known as "thinking outside the box" and "ideation". Sometimes a successful design might require suggesting a manufacturing method that is not common in the customer's industry. Sometimes I have to literally "turn the world on its ear" and suggest a different assembly process that gets the design back to familiar and manageable territory. You can't get faulted for paying attention and listening, just be sure you stay focused on the task and are ready to provide solutions when its your turn to speak up.

When I am developing the design, I am considering the entire system. How will my widget interface with other items? How will manufacturing produce it? How assembly build it? How will end users interact with it? As I develop my models in SolidWorks, I try to envision what the final assembly will look like. This will lead me to where the assembly origin should be, and in turn tells me which components are the critical driving factors for the design. This also gives me further insight into how each part should be modeled, as in when a part should be a revolved feature or multiple extruded bosses. From the base sketch, should I extrude in only one direction in the plane, or should it be a mid-plane extrude. The proper model construction should be intuitive at higher levels of the model. It should make sense that if I want to grow a particular feature that I should only have to select that feature and modify it, not find myself in a cascading chain of changes.