Collective System Design™

Collective System Design™ (CSD) is a process for applying and implementing the Product Delivery System (PDS) and Manufacturing System Design Decomposition™ (MSDD) products or maps. The PDS/MSDD are tools for significant enhancement of a company's manufacturing and product delivery capability. The PDS/MSDD maps provide a logical (and customizable) framework to answer the question of how to develop a stable and consistent way to deliver product capability. The CSD process creates the cultural, human and technical environment necessary to implement the PDS/MSDD.

Since the PDS defines the logic of a system design, it is a valuable communication and evaluation tool of a system's design intentions and agreed upon implementation strategy. Simply put, the PDS defines implementation strategy and measures of success. The measures are not tied to the mechanics of implementation (called PS's or Physical Solutions). Measures are tied to successful achievement of the system design intentions (called FR's or Functional Requirements). The PDS is an open framework. If a PS does not achieve the FR, the PS is changed. This change in the system design is then communicated throughout the organization. PS's are chosen to prevent undesirable effects on a set of FR's, the result being a predictable (or uncoupled) design.

The CSD process starts with a management overview of how to achieve the design intentions of an enterprise through CSD. Management then tailors the CSD process to meet its needs. Discovery of true system design intentions and the cultural environment to evoke change are necessary parts of the ensuing CSD process. User technical training is required to create the system design map and system design evaluation measures.

A system design is incomplete until all the FR's defined by the PDS are fully achieved. Until all PDS requirements are achieved, the system is unstable in modern manufacturing terminology since the FR's of the PDS define the conditions of system stability. When an FR is not met, cost is excessive. Excess cost is the initial consequence of not meeting system design FR's. However, over time the cost of not meeting the FR's leads to more serious consequences and ultimately a product delivery system that is no longer competitive.

The CSD and the PDS/MSDD provide a new methodology of manufacturing and enterprise design in general. The use of this logical, user-developed product delivery approach ensures a company achieves improved process capability, product reliability, and cost reduction.