NPI Program management in EMS fields (II) (注:欢迎砸砖)

2.2.9. ECR/ECO plan: PDM and product engineer should control this plan. Most companies have the procedure document to specify, but PM have to concern about once the engineering change would cause cost change. So, to define an ECR/ECO handling procedure and cost control process are necessary.
2.2.10. CPM analysis and back-up solution consideration.
When all plans were ready, PM should have a review to all these activities as a by-stage come-out. We title the review meeting as “planning review” or “start-up review”. The purpose is to make sure all activities are under control and running as what we expected. Following I list some critical items which need high attention:
a> General Information: Customer milestone, capacity, volume and dedicated project personnel. The information were collected and announced to team members.
b> Supply chain management: the focus is on procurement management and component coding (or BOM coding). Before the meeting, Material people should review the BOM and check out which ones are critical components. The critical component mainly means supplier-controlled market and/or high-value unique component.
c> Production line setting: SMT package (Gerber, X-Y, PCN drawing), assembly process, packing requirement (domestic and export), traceability, testing software and hardware, tooling preparation, delivery method, cosmetic specification and checking method, plant layout, operator training and shift arrangement.
d> Quality: Control plan and flow chart, environment audit, process audit, GR&R, golden sample, trial run premises, process qualification requirement.
e> Other problem. Finance, Logistics, Security, they would raise their concern and hope to get your positive response.

2.3. Execution phase.
As soon as customer gives go signal, the NPI is promoted into “executive phase”. I’d call it “documentation phase” also. So far, nobody can ignore the importance of documentation to the operation of a company, so does a project. Not all people can receive customer information directly and as well as to read through customer demand. PM should do a checklist as followings and review with functions concerned to ensure all necessary information was ready:
2.3.1. AVL and BOM. In most cases, the NPI BOM is a dummy one. Project assistant should have unique product number and input this number into all relevant systems. From now on, we only discuss this product with this number internally.
2.3.2. Production documents, including process flow-chart, WI (Working Instruction, or MI Manufacturing Instruction), Test Instruction, Final inspection instruction, and packing design and instruction.
2.3.3. Quality documents, including PFMEA, control plan, GR&R, Capability study and PQP plan.
2.3.4. Customer specification and golden sample (if applicable). Make sure the latest quality and product specification was got, and renewal of test software. Quality engineer should transfer the specification into internal format and testing engineer should have a software upgrade list. Different document version may be applied to different product version. Golden sample may include system sample, unit sample and material sample. QA should have the record.
2.3.5. Check that approved CapEx is available.
The project milestone may be reviewed again according to procurement and engineering prerequisite. In fact, the output of this phase is all manufacturing sources are ready and just waiting for prototype signal, facilities, materials, document, personnel, equipment and so on. Therefore, PM has to review the investment no excess the approved CapEx and follow budget.
Sometimes, customer would request to build several samples to do system test as verification. PM should ensure the correct PO# is received and special requirement was declared. The NPI cost was released by either PM or AM. At the same time, engineering team should start the conference meeting with customer engineers to discuss production problems and trouble-shooting solutions. It is based on the project organization PM released in “planning phase”. PM may handle this meeting as start-up, but for long-term, Quality engineer or product engineer should be the owner. The sample requirement also can be discussed in details on this meeting, for instance, the version, marking, component, packing and etc. Project assistant calculate the cost and issue invoice to customer.
A special case is, some or all equipment, tooling and material are from customer. The equipment allocation is based on the capacity, PM have to refresh the capacity according to some information got from the sample run, for example, test yield, manufacturing performance, equipment capacity and capability. The capacity can be changed once software upgrade
Material controller should calculate the inventory accuracy and minimize the scrap cost. Timely inventory adjustment is expected. Together with PM to evaluate scrap level and making cause analyze if needed. He/she is also responsible for creating NPI report and if scrap has been caused by special reason (for example tests, machine evaluations, tool problems etc) the information should be added to the report.

2.4 Trial run phase.
Customer released formal PO# and confirmed price, we start trial run. The output is trial run report from engineer team. The result is trial run sample approved by customer and give ramp-up signal. One of key jobs here are to re-confirm with customers and target factories (if applicable) about the approval criteria and make an initial plan that covers the schedule from trial run to ramp-up.
Quality engineer should draw out quality report with GR&R and actual yield data. GR&R is an evaluation to the measurement system, and allow engineers to know the percentage of variation from error in the measurement, and is a great tool for comparing between measurement devices, operators, fixtures, tooling, etc. It is to ensure that the measurement method, equipment and environment has the adequate precision and stability to meet assign levels regardless of environmental and operator variation. I’d discuss how to do GR&R in details in appendix. For yield, I’d remind you to distinguish what is defect and what is defective (read it from 6-sigma book) and please recall what you learnt from COPQ. All yield problems can be summarized as COPQ problem and also you evaluate what should be included according to COPQ list.
The trial run report should cover the processes from SMT to packing and shipment. We should raise action plan for all critical problems and potentials necessarily.
After trial run, sample would be sent to customer based on request. The other units should be stored properly and have good identification. Customer may do some design change with the sample they received, so these on held units have to be scraped. In that time, if you cannot find them or shipped them with normal units, your business would be spoiled. Please be careful!
In most cases, the whole NPI can be lengthened or shortened due to many factors, and it is also naturally have direct correlation to customer demand. There are 4 basic factors: 1> functionality, 2> complexity, 3> requirement, and 4> predicted volume. So, in exception of general program management knowledge, PM is expected to have specified knowledge. Same product, even have vast difference due to designed for family use and industry use, no matter to mention satellite telecommunication use. In general, we count the quantity of components and their joint to define the complexity, for example, one PCBA unit that has 100 pieces of SMT component and 400 wedding joints, is higher complexity than another PCBA who has 100 pieces of component and 300 wedding joints. As for predicted volume, we cannot reply on customer data only; it can be changed due to many reasons. It is suggested to have information workers to collect more information, for example, what is the tendency for this product, how many the market possession the customer have, how about the confidence level of this customer. It is so essential. Unfortunately, I saw many investment failures from some companies due to poor information collection. Put millions of money on equipment, but the profit is only few million, and then repeat such case again and again.
The good idea is to follow these NPI steps one by one, no hopping. For example, don’t overlook any problems encountered in trial run phase, even you should look into every steps to find more potential problems. More problems were found and solid solutions were given, more successful mass production you will have.

2.5 Ramp-up phase.
The trial run sample was approved by customer and “go-signal” was released, it means we can move to “ramp-up phase” successfully. This is the final phase for NPI. We must check what is lost or need further improvement for factory production. In fact, customer would give updated forecast and MRP plan now. Planner can make production schedule based on that.
Now, let’s do a series production that is like mini mass production. Series run for 1 or 2 days (just for example, different product has different requirement), with current production line, document and personnel, record all defect and problems found by each process (working station) in defined intervals verifying stability, capacity, capability, and overall performance. The overall purpose is to verify the throughout manufacturing process is stable and has sufficiently both capability and capacity conforming to the specified requirements.
The report consists of following studies:
a> Process capability study, on chosen critical process and product parameters. The study includes control charts and stability (predictability), for example, Xbar-R chart for parameters and P-chart or U-chart for process steps, Cpk distribution to parameters also.
b> Capacity study, to verify the expected or required capacity through yield contribution. The failure codes in every process step is broken down into a Pareto chart, so does to scrap rate, sorting, rework, and so on. Pls. be reminded this study is to enable an effective process improvement program and to reveal as much process problems as possible up front.
c> Action plan must be given to remedy the capability and/or yields that cannot reach the targets. Some customers would assign target before the trial run, also based on this target to assign more for mass production.
Internally, we should establish key operational performance indexes and define respective target to ensure the product be successfully introduced to factory:
1> Inventory Turnover (ITO) ITO = (Cost of Goods Sold from Stock Sales) / (Average Inventory Investment), higher is better.
2> Delivery Accuracy (DA) Measures combine delivery time and quality.
3> Yield Yield = (The amount of good units without rework) / (the total amount of units) (%)
4> Sales Cycle (The time or process between first contact with the customer to when the sale is made) or (Balance of (Amount payable + Inventory – Accounts receivable) in days).
5> Efficiency

_to be continue_