Introducing ProjectAlign™

A manufacturer was experiencing a large volume of customer complaints regarding a new product. The complaints centered around supposed defects in the product that could not be detected by any of the manufacturer’s existing tests or inspections. Internal investigations were also inconclusive, with each department reaching a different conclusion.

After stepping in with an objective outside perspective, we were able to determine that there were in fact defects in the product. The defects were undetectable by existing tests because those tests were too narrowly focused. We developed a piece of hardware that was able to allow the defects to be identified and helped the manufacturer modify internal processes to quickly communicate the discovery to all parties in the production process.

A software developer was having throughput issues. They needed a way to quickly develop, test, and deliver new products (while maintaining existing products) but had resource limitations. Their big question was how could they make more with the same number of people?

We looked over their processes, identified commonalities, and developed a new strategic plan that would answer that question. We then worked with the individual product teams to realign their individual workstreams with the new strategic initiative. In the end, the developer saw reduced development timelines and increased throughput with no additional product teams required.

A manufacturing customer was struggling to identify how bad product was making it past their quality control checks. They had taken a multi-tiered approach to ensure quality, with layers of human inspections, automated checks using visual inspection systems, and computer solutions to tie it all together. Looking at the data they shouldn’t have a problem, but customer complaints told a different story.

We investigated the issues and talked to stakeholders from all areas. The investigation showed that the problem was more complex than initially assumed, involving a combination of people and process across four departments. Our recommendations were two-fold: increase security of their automated systems, update the quality tracking metrics to more accurately reflect the origin of quality issues, and train personnel on the new processes/procedures. 

A software development customer was stuck during early development of a new product. The previous project team had not delivered the desired level of background understanding, planning, and design recommendations that the project lead was seeking, in spite spending 18 months working the problem set.

We spent 18 weeks on the project, applying the IEEE 15288 standard to deliver foundational research on the problem, strategic plan for features, use cases, and project roadmap, along with a recommended design for the test environment.