Scaling Turbojet Development

Finding Flow

We held “Finding Flow” workshops with our client’s teams to learn about their specific challenges. Working with Engineering, Manufacturing, and Assembly & Test departments we created detailed product development value stream maps.

Challenges & Complexity

The teams said their main challenges were prioritising work, keeping everyone informed, and managing changes in a fast-paced environment. The increased size and complexity of their work led to problems with prioritising tasks, making changes, and keeping track of what needed to be done.

The different parts of the product development process were not working well together , and sometimes teams would start working on lower priority tasks before the higher priority ones were finished.

Despite everyone's hard work, problems with communication and the need to constantly prioritise tasks led to inconsistent results.

This led to problems like products being held up in testing, incomplete documentation being sent to clients, and performance issues being discovered after products were delivered. These problems were manageable for now, but they would get worse as the volume of work increased. The current way of doing things needed to be improved by focusing more on collaboration and communication. These problems were hidden from view and often led to problems like reactive problem solving and rework. Without a clear understanding of how the product development process worked, it was difficult to have confidence in the results.

Taming Turbulence

In the "Taming Turbulence" phase, we focused on defining prototype solutions to the problems identified in the initial workshops. The most challenging part was establishing the foundations of an integrated product development approach across our client’s entire value chain.

Framework for Innovation

We knew that we needed to build a process framework that would encourage innovation, collaboration, and flow, while also allowing the organisation to grow and evolve. Using the information from the value stream maps created in the "Finding Flow" stage, we created a common lifecycle definition with associated milestones. We also made sure to incorporate approaches to dealing with critical dependencies and provide solutions to the impediments that were key to improving flow.

Unifying the Development Process

In our overall solution, we were able to link the work of the teams together under a common set of interactions. We also defined key dependencies between critical processes and controls used by each team. This allowed us to create our client’s first integrated framework for product development in a way that could be easily understood by everyone involved. It also allowed us to focus and prioritise work, while providing transparency of the status of each product development program in the organisation.

Accelerating Flow

In the "Accelerating Flow" phase, we focused on validating our prototype solutions with the teams that had identified the challenges in the first place. We did this over the course of three sprints. 

Sprint 1: Product Change

In sprint 1, we trained the teams on the new change management process. We also collaboratively developed a baseline Bill of Materials (BoM) for a single product. This allowed us to test the process and supporting tools, and identify and resolve problems quickly. It also generated significant new knowledge in the teams. By the end of the sprint, our client was better able to control changes to their baseline BOM and identify and manage the potential consequences with more discipline.

Sprint 2: Making Work flow with Kanban

In sprint 2, we targeted improvements based on insights gained during the "Finding Flow" workshops. We worked with specific teams feeding into the testing department. These teams had identified slow-moving work in progress (WIP) at testing, but they were unable to understand the contributors and reasons behind the stagnation. We introduced the principles of Kanban and built an operational workflow for the assembly and test process. This helped to ensure that work could flow by making the process steps, the work status, and the prioritisation clear and transparent to everyone involved.

Sprint 3: Integrated Development

Finally, in sprint 3, we connected all of the work together. We engaged all teams in learning about the new framework for product development. Together, we put this learning into practice by completing the associated question set for a single project. We identified risks in that program and explored actions to treat those risks effectively. In doing so, we validated the framework on a single program and were able to provide a complete and coherent view of status based on the cross-functional team inputs.

Keeping Pace

After the successful transfer of ownership and capability, this phase focused on maintaining the momentum that had been achieved. We did this by providing close support to the teams as they encountered questions and issues. This is a critical phase to ensure that the improvements made are sustainable in the long term.

Coaching for Sustained Growth

In practice, most of this phase involved coaching sessions to support the key role players as they embedded the newly established processes and activities into their daily routines. We also ensured that high-quality process documentation was passed on to our client, along with a set of recommendations for areas to focus on in the future. This will help them continue their rapid growth journey and deliver high-quality products to their customers.

Newly Introduced Framework

The newly introduced framework, which we crafted, aims to standardise operations across different functional departments. By utilising the handbook, which can be found on the right, each department ensures consistency in its application. This handbook, enriched by contributions from each team, serves as a testament to the collaborative efforts made to unify business processes. Refer to the example below for specific content from the handbook we developed.