Common Product Development Problems – Struggling With Capacity Issues

Do you get frustrated dealing with capacity issues? Are you tired of juggling the number of projects you have with the number of designers / engineers you have on staff to complete those projects? Many of our clients struggle with this issue. With some, it’s a constant battle of having too many engineers but not wanting to negatively affect morale. With others, the struggle is not having enough engineers. Still others struggle after their company restructures the product development group and they’re left with the same number of projects to develop and significantly fewer designers / engineers to develop the projects.

We recently completed a project with a division of a Fortune 500 company that had this exact problem. In dealing with the after affects of the economic downturn, they had gone through a major restructuring. Large numbers of people were let go, and many of those that stayed were shuffled to other product lines. Only a fraction of the designers / engineers were left. Yet the list of products do be developed, some of which were right in the middle of the development phase, did not change. Adding to the struggle was a hiring freeze.

In working in the product development industry for over 16 years, I’ve seen this, and similar, scenarios many times. And I’ve seen companies deal with it in one of three ways:

1. They force their engineering staff to work overtime.
2. They ignore time lines and “do what they can do”.
3. They contract with an outside design service to temporarily increase their design / engineering capacity.

Options one and two might work – for a short time. Rallying the team to put in extra time and effort works, but over time the rally call will fade. Eventually, the staff will become disgruntled, deliver less than satisfactory work as a result of the increased stress level and work load, or both. Ignoring time lines and just “doing what you can do” also works, but eventually, upper management won’t accept missing deadlines. Working with an outside design and engineering service however is the option that many engineering managers turn to.

While it’s obvious that there are costs involved with hiring an outside product development company like Impulse, those costs can be very easily managed. Impulse Product Development understands that we are only going to be used on an as needed basis. We expect a fluctuation in the work load and we are efficient at dealing with it. We understand that, while our goal is to develop a long term relationship with our clients, each time we are hired, it’s a temporary situation. That’s a great benefit to the company looking for the capacity boost. Of course, I have a biased opinion, but here are two examples that show this isn’t just my opinion.

One of our clients, that develops a tremendous number of consumer products, maintains a conservatively sized design and engineering staff. Their goal is to never layoff an employee due to market conditions. When they need additional design, engineering, or simply CAD resources, they call us. Sometimes we will work on only one project with them. Other times we will work on 4 or 5 different project. If / when the workload drops, we get “laid off”, not their employees. This is standard operating procedure for Impulse and it maintains morale within at our client’s company.

The second example I alluded to in the second paragraph above. The company I referred to develops consumer products, and we were asked to help out with a project that was in the middle of the product development cycle, complete with certain milestones to be met like release for tooling quote and tooling release. Impulse was able to come in, quickly gain an understanding of the project, and help them reach each of their timeline goals. Here’s what the Senior Manager for the product line said about Impulse’s involvement on the project,

“When I reached out to Impulse, we were in the middle of developing a ground up product. We had just gone through a major restructuring in which I lost a significant portion of my internal design and engineering capacity.  We still had a project to finish and we had to hit customer deadlines that were set before the restructuring.  Impulse flew to our offices the next week to meet with our team, to gain an understanding of how we operate, and to fully align on the objectives for the project.  We communicated well enough throughout the project that Impulse completed all of the design tasks from their offices which helped keep the cost down. Impulse’s experience and speed allowed us to release data for tooling on time, under budget, and at a higher level of detail than we are accustomed to. Our upper management team now uses our experience with Impulse as an example of how to leverage outside resources when we are struggling with capacity issues.”

Outsourcing portions of your product development or product design isn’t for everyone, but many companies view it as a great alternative. Impulse Product Development is a team of experienced product development engineers based in Indianapolis, Indiana. We’ve helped many clients work through the challenges of fluctuating staff requirements. If you’re interested in learning more about Impulse Product Development, or if you’d like to have a conversation to see if we may, or may not be, a fit for your company. Please contact us.