Exceeding customer goals is great… If they notice.
History:
A $500M business unit committed to develop a complex manufacturing process to improve the optical performance of its MEMS device. Yet after talking with multiple stakeholders, Dr. Miller found that much of the improved specification could, quite literally, not be seen by the customer.
Dr. Miller, with the development team, identified a vastly simpler approach that still met customer needs, and demonstrated it using extremely limited resources. The prototypes convinced management to jump to this new development plan.
By limiting our solution to what the customers wanted (not what the technologists could do), we:
- Qualified the product in just six months
- Cut 10 person years off the development schedule
- Removed six manufacturing steps
This solution has shipped in billions of dollars worth of devices worldwide, and the associated manufacturing savings have totaled tens of millions of dollars.
Most technologists lack the perspective to ask “why?” instead of “what?”. A consultant who specializes in translating from PhD to English (and back again) provides enormous value by eliminating mis-steps, improving performance, and shortening development times.
Bringing in an outsider to help with communication will free your people will do what they do best – execute. On the right things. Faster.