Thursday, April 19
8:30 a.m.
Keynote Address: “Economic Growth – Essential and Achievable”
- Peter Buca
- Vice President Innovation
- Parker Hannifin Corporation: Cleveland, OH
The central work of product development and innovation is to make money. The profits generated by this work benefits our people and firms by putting bread on the table and continuously advancing science and technology for the betterment of mankind. Economic Growth must result from this work. To achieve Economic Growth, innovators, engineers, scientists, technologists, et al., generate and apply critical knowledge. Peter Buca presents the call for Economic Growth. He presents a wide scope view of the essential drivers: innovative technology, a culture of high performance people and organizational leadership.
10:30
Predictors of Production Challenges Born from Problem Solving During Design and Development
- Chris DiAntonio
- Neutron Generator Design Engineer
- Sandia National Laboratories: Albuquerque, NM
The road to achieving operating excellence for any production system is always littered with numerous challenges. Many of these challenges are identified during the design and development phase of product realization and are confronted with problem solving efforts. The investigation during the problem solving inherently results in predictors that can be linked to the design problems faced during production in hindsight. By understanding these predictors and utilizing them to your advantage the designer can minimize the impact to downstream product. Several case studies will be presented that demonstrate the complexity yet reward of these predictors and having the ability to recognize proactively the learning opportunities of production.
1:00 p.m.
Design Problem: Solving the Right Problem
- Helen Park
- Project Manager
- WetDesign, Inc: Los Angeles, CA
Complex product designs required design problem solving at several levels of the product systems architecture. Some call it the Kentou Phase his requires a team of people with expertise and passion to learn the design unknowns. Helen Park calls this “Discovery Work.” Helen presents her experiences at WetDesign in the Team Learning Culture which embodies this Discovery Work. The team challenges are many and familiar: customer wants “Brilliant and Beautiful’ Fountain. The design project has impossible deadlines, scope creep, resources constraints, and a chaotic culture of interpersonal dynamics. Helen discovered the solution to these constraints is in finding the right problems often unseen. She will describe developing the right solutions and involving the team members in the right interactions. These tasks enable prompt decisions, innovative collaboration and satisfying work that moves the project to design to successful completion. Helen Park’s “Discovery Work’ is the key component to product design and development work. Discovery Work should enable development teams to collaborate better and with higher work satisfaction.