1. What features of the timer design appear to offer Doorley the strongest advantages over its competitors’ products? What features are apparent weaknesses?
2. Which manufacturing methods are most strongly related to the goal of producing a flexible drive system? Do any of these methods conflict with each other?
3. Which design parameter has the strongest dependence on any of the manufacturing methods?
4. What evidence is there that the ALPHA team has used a DFM approach?
There are at least three major areas of discussion that these cases support fairly well. First, Case (A) gives an illustration of a “real life” QFD effort and associated “House of Quality”. In addition to demonstrating how complex such an analysis can be, the case creates the opportunity to discuss the cross-functional involvement that is needed to accomplish it. A second issue addressed in the cases is, how should suppliers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) work together in the co-development of new products? What is each partner looking for in the relationship and how can managers ensure that effective working relationships are achieved? The third area of focus centers on NPD project management. The Doorley Controls company made some pretty serious mistakes on the Alpha project. Many can be chalked up to “rookie” errors. A company like this might only attempt a major NPD once every 10 years or so, so they can’t be expected to have mature NPD processes. Still, a lot can be learned from the experience, and especially from the post-project comments of the project team members.