EPM Live Builds Design for Lean Sigma (DfLS) Solution for Project Server and MOSS

Overview

One of EPM Live's long standing clients had the need to implement a structured approach to deploy Design for Lean Sigma (DfLS) across new product development (NPD) within their organization. Leveraging EPM Live, Microsoft Project Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server EPM Live was able to help design, build and adapt this innovative approach to improve and perfect their new product development process.

This solution was intended to achieve an end-to-end deployment process that would significantly enhance the development of products and services that far exceeded other problem-solving and design approaches.

Six Sigma has been successfully applied to many industries and verticals to help solve business problems and improve product performance, processes, and services. The concept of DfLS pertains to delivering a product or service with the defined and intended functionality at the lowest cost and at the Six Sigma quality level.

Situation

The solution was designed to standardize the client's new product development life cycle including all DDOS (Define, Develop, Optimize, Scale-up) phases. Some of the requirements for the DfLS approach were as follows:

• Create a custom NPD Microsoft Project wizard that would step each project manager through the creation of a DfLS schedule that would align specifically to their NPD needs/requirements
• Create 4 MS Project templates/types that would automatically be created based on the responses to the MS Project wizard questionnaire, and that Lock down all required tasks within the schedule that are mandatory within the specified project class to prevent deviation from the standard process
• Create an EPM Live SharePoint workspace that is linked to the MS Project schedule that will automatically gen-erate the required forms associated with the specified project class
• Create NPD DfLS custom forms to align to client's busi-ness structure including: 10 Key Questions, Project Charter, Multi-Gen Planning, SIPOC (Suppliers, Input, Process, Outputs, Customers) Form, RACI Chart, Project Plan, Budget Activity, Risk Analysis, Affinity Diagram, Conjoint Analysis, Kano Model, Benchmarking, CTQ Scorecard, HOQ Matrix, Prototyping Activity, Design FMEA, Market Research/VOC/Function Mapping Activity, Gate Review Survey
• Automated workflow that would trigger stage gate approval based on form completion and product team survey responses

Solution

A customer DfLS wizard was built in Microsoft Project Server to help enforce the completion of required tasks within the DDOS life cycle. Once the wizard had completed and the project class was identified, a custom EPM Live SharePoint project site was created. The system became an easy-to-use, standardized tool that gave the product managers and project managers the tools they needed to make better informed decisions, efficiently control their schedules and budget to lean standards and take away the guesswork when it came to creating and maintaining the necessary forms to complete their stage gates.

The EPM Live SharePoint project workspace was designed to auto-generate all documentation and forms required for the specified project class defined in the MS Project wizard proc-ess. This functionality allowed the project managers to focus on managing the work for their projects and not the processes behind it.

Leveraging the Microsoft technologies already in place, EPM Live was able to build a powerful tool that would extend the client’s current platform into a DfLS solution that would im-prove time to market and increase quality.