This guideline is intended to help the designers and project managers to not forget anything when designing and industrializing a product. It can obviously be improved and adapted according to the field activity.

It summarizes the differents steps and needed documentation in order to ensure qualitity and traceability in the project management.

A project could be cut in four phases :

All the project documents have to be listed in a technical file.

Each phase is ended by a project review, elaborated by the project manager and documented by all the project's members. As a general rule, this is the project manager who is responsible of the project progress, of course, but he's also the guarantor of the documents and of the project file quality.

Exploration phase

This phase consists in analyzing the customer specifications in order to deduce the project structure. This is an identification phase which will allow you or your leader to accept the project.

The issues are :

♦  Are the customer specifications well-known and written ?

♦ Is project manager identified ?

♦ Is the job sharing well identified when several teams are involved ?

♦ Are the costs known to make the budget ?

♦ Are the project consequences well known ?

The exploration phase review must show the differences between the customer specifications and the suggested solution.

The following documents must be included in the project file :

♦  The customer specifications,

♦  The exploration review where are described all the above criterions,

♦  The exploration review acceptance document.

 

Feasibility phase

In this phase, no development is done. The purpose is to check that all items which will be part of the project have been taken into account and that the risks are identified, analyzed and solved.

The issues are :

♦  Is the concept validated ?

♦  Are the functional specifications started : methods, validity, failure modes, safety operating ?

♦  Are the suppliers requests for quotation's document established ?

♦  Are the providers identified ? (suppliers listed, criterions and method of choice)

♦  Is the design review with the supplier giving satisfaction ? (well understunding of the specifications and processes, quality and reliability commitment, Product Environment Acceptance criterions (PEA) accepted by the supplier, suppliers risks identified, analyzed and solved)

♦  Is the Preliminary Risk Assessment (PRA) (purchasing risks, industrialization risks, ...) identifed and validated by all teams or people involved and is the Validation Plan established ?

♦  Is the Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) written ? TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FMEA, see Introduction to FMEA

♦  Is the installation principle well known ?

♦  Is the planning including the suppliers' planning existing ?

♦  Are the cost identified and in accordance with the expected budget ? (internal studies, external studies, supplies, tools, prototypes, ...)

The feasibility phase review should allow to solve all the identified risks before starting the development.

The following documents must be included in the project file :

♦  Hardware specifications and software specifications

♦  The consultation document including the PEA criterions,

♦  Preliminary Risk Assessment,

♦  Failure Mode Effects Analysis,

♦  Planning,

♦  Budget,

♦  The feasibility review acceptance document.

 

Design

The design is done in this phase. A prototype representative of the mass production should be shown to the customer.

The issues are :

♦  Is the installation document written ? (product environment known, connectors (choice, within the reach area, dimensions reported)

♦  Are the hardware and software specifications finalized ?

♦  Is the Validation Plan written and accepted by the suppliers ?

♦  Is the prototypes inspection compliant to agreement defined with the suppliers ?

♦  Is the Product Environment Acceptance (PEA) accepted by the providers ?

♦  Is the user manual written ?

The design review allows to validate that the product is in accordance with the customer specifications and that all the documents are existing.

The following documents must be included in the project file :

♦  Hardware specifications,

♦  Software specifications,

♦  Installation specifications,

♦  Validation plan,

♦  Product Envrionment Acceptance document,

♦  User manual,

♦  The design review acceptance document.

 

Industrialization

This phase allows to bring a functional operating product to an industrializable level according to the standards and certifications before the sale of the product and its market use.

The issues are :

♦  Are the drawing established ?

♦  Is any certification needed ?

♦  Are the ElectroMagnetic Compatibility and Electrical Ccompatibility certifications needed ?

The industrialization phase review must allow the product to be compliant with the recommended standard in order to be used by the customer.

The following documents must be included in the project file :

♦  Drawings,

♦  Certification documents if needed,

♦  The industrialization review acceptance document.