I am always a little reluctant to use the phrase ‘cradle to grave’ when referring to managing a product through its various stages of life – as any parent knows there is considerable fun, enjoyment, planning, good fortune, effort, pain, physical and emotional ups and downs just getting a new baby to that cradle stage!  It seems to me that ‘cradle’ is actually quite a long way along from the ‘idea’ start point, and in these days of advancing cryogenics, ‘grave’ may not be the chosen or even the legal method of disposal in the future!

In the interests of good taste I won’t pursue the human analogy further but the underlying phrase ‘innovation to disposal’ seems to cover the range of product lifecycle management (PLM) more fully.

The majority of companies I meet are involved in the design, manufacture, sale and support of their product portfolio and all see the customer service operation as being an important component in the future of the company’s business in providing a valuable revenue stream with good margins. Most, if not all, are experiencing increased customer expectations with greater demand for operational flexibility, more stringent service level agreements, shorter supply chains as well as more frequent product introductions and shorter product lifecycles.

Undoubtedly the greatest interaction with a company’s customers is through the service team. With it comes feedback from customers on their problems, the implications of these issues, their perception of quality and value, reasons for choosing specific products/solutions and some pretty strong leads on what’s good and what’s bad with the product offerings. All too frequently the customer’s voice is heard at a point where the product design has been ‘cast in stone’.

The creation, development, launch and support of a new product presents a unique challenge for an organisation. It is a truly end-to-end, multi-functional project, an integrated business chain in which the service function link needs to add value through contributing its knowledge, resources and skills across the whole business process. And the danger for the service entity that doesn’t add value in this business chain? ‘Service, you are the weakest link – goodbye’.

1. Innovation
Essentially this start out phase is about thinking differently, phrases such as thinking outside the box, lateral thinking, think the unthinkable, thought showers (replacing the politically incorrect brain storming – yes it’s true ) can be captured by ‘Why do we do it this way, can we do it differently, what would happen if , how do we become.. ?’  These types of question can be applied equally to the technologies, physical product and to the services portfolio and the good news is that great ideas are no longer the domain of engineering or marketing and service can participate.

It is more than an ideas forum though. A company treating innovation as just ideas was disappointed when the results of multiple suggestion boxes and an intranet portal resulted in innovations such as ‘remove the potted plants from the office and save contract costs’, ‘have company directors stay in cheaper hotels’ and ‘provide cheaper suggestion boxes’.

As Steve Jobs the founder of Apple observed: ‘Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower’.

The innovation phase is one that more and more corporations are including in their business and product strategies; looking to substantially change their value proposition, model the business differently, combine technology, business and market insights from similar and dissimilar industries as catalysts to change.

2. Definition
The phrase ‘You’ve got to be in it to win it’ gives a broad clue that successful products have those customer delighting, market leading, profit making elements built in from the start – it’s not an afterthought or bolt-on – it needs to be integral.

There are four key areas where service can contribute and enhance the final solution.

Reliability:  These days a reliable product is the expected standard, a given – as consumers none of us expect our washing machine, television or car to breakdown and to have an infinite mean time between failure – we expect to switch the product on and it works. Why is it then that many companies still have reliability specifications for their new designs that give mean time between failures (MTBFs) in months?

In some cases it is because these values have not been challenged and the standard design spec template has been regurgitated – service can challenge, look for continual improvement between new designs and variants.  In some instances it is because nothing is ‘known’ about the performance of existing components – service can communicate appropriate data mined from the service management system back into the specification process.

This was effectively demonstrated at one company where service and call centre data was used to establish the interval and type of product interventions, rather than just failures, required to be performed by customers, call agents as well as service techs. A Mean Time Between Interventions was established not just at a product level but at hardware and software sub systems levels which drove future MTBI specifications and also enabled the impact on call centre, support and field resourcing levels to be forecast at the product definition phase.

Usability:  A great user interface to the product will go unnoticed, an indifferent one will probably lead to lots of confused users and a bad one will definitely lose customers. Clear, concise user documentation follows the same pattern, increasing the customer experience of the product and minimising unnecessary support activities – service can provide customer environment and usage feedback.

A product where feedback on the success or failure of a given operation was crucial to the customer used a display which required the operator to refer to a manual and a code look-up table to find out if the unit was working correctly or indeed faulty. The inappropriate user interface was justified as using cheaper components, keeping unit costs down and saving on language translation costs.

This supplier saw the increase in size and cost of the call centre to handle the resulting increase in confused and unhappy customer phone calls, as a service problem and a service silo expense - service are ideally placed to feedback customer experiences and also promote a broad, life based product profitability model.

Serviceability:   I am sure we can all cite instances where the break/fix servicing aspects of a product have impacted the service department’s KPIs, reducing first time fix rates, extending repair times and consuming additional parts; drive belts that can only be replaced by removing mounting panels, access panels too small for the part to be extracted through, in-situ board test points that can not be reached, or those jobs merely requiring three-sixty degree, fully articulated elbows. 

The way in which the product is expected to be supported, the service methodology of the business, is a key inclusion at the product definition phase and is influenced by many factors. Although it is frequently seen as an internal issue, the serviceability of a product has serious ramifications on the customer’s ability to conduct their business profitably. Recognising, positioning and integrating serviceability as an integral, customer centric requirement will ultimately help the customer differentiate between the high value, total solution deliverer and the mere commodity provider.

Where the necessary methodology does not exist, service can use the same lifecycle structure to be innovative and implement services that will provide a sustainable competitive advantage.

Profitability: Printer manufacturers do not make money from the product, or indeed the service; it is the consumables that are the big money spinners. They choose to look at the maximum ‘product profitability’ opportunity within the integrated business chain and make that profit across the business rather than in departmental silos.

The set of slides shown at the product development review of one company showed the product engineering costs, the expected manufacturing costs, the forecasted sales volumes, prices and margins– several cash flow projections, ROI predictions, all very positive. The absence of any service entity participation was mirrored by the absence of support development costs, set-up costs, service running costs as well as service revenues, and whilst the product remained profitable with these numbers eventually included, the payback period was extended well beyond the planned and acceptable period – service must provide financial input to the project budgets.

3. Development
This is the phase of the project where all of the business functions start to develop and strengthen their link of the chain prior to launch and for the service function there are many challenges in readying for market implementation.

The same four elements of reliability, usability, serviceability and profitability can be questioned, applied and confirmed by service throughout this phase to ensure a well integrated final product.

Transfer of knowledge from the design engineering team through to call centre agents, service techs, support staff, customers and distributors via training and documentation is frequently a service support activity. These can be significant tasks but this information represents a vital element in building long term, mutually profitable relationships with existing and new customers.

Modelling or testing is a crucial element of this phase, some people seem to have the innate ability to be able to press a combination of buttons that sends the device into some new unforeseen state of seizure – they can be really annoying but worth their weight in gold! I am sure that you will remember the A class Mercedes Benz where the car literally fell over during a Swedish moose-avoidance test; Mercedes' smallest model’s suspension had to be totally re-engineered at the twelfth hour.

Putting an early prototype in front of a service technician group or a friendly customer can provide extremely useful feedback that can be incorporated into the launch product. It should not be a lip-service activity though; a customer having diligently reviewed a product was not best amused when all of his suggestions and comments were apparently ignored and he subsequently chose not to order any of the new products.

4. Use – in field
The traditional domain of the service and support function, making sure the right resource, is in the right place, at the right time at the right price.

Product performance feedback, or knowledge flow, to design, manufacturing, supply chain and purchasing groups is an invaluable activity that strengthens the service linkage into the business. Service has the responsibility to ensure that the type and quality of feedback is robust, unambiguous and appropriately managed.  Failures such as poor training, parts availability, call handling activities may be incorrectly identified as product problems rather than service process issues. The bottom line though is that all the product data in the world will be ineffective if there is no structure in which to determine how the data should be used, how it is validated, how it is interpreted and acted upon and who carries out that action.

5. Disposal
The earlier phases of product definition and development will need to factor in the choice of materials, construction and manufacturing techniques available as a result of WEEE directive of 2002.  Much has been written to promote recycling, reuse and other recovery methods to reduce levels of waste that must be physically dumped so I will not add to it but it is clear that service organisations will be impacted.

A product roadmap showing new and emerging products or technologies is frequently available under a non disclosure agreement from a company but there are fewer numbers of companies that are able to provide a product exit roadmap. Service are in an excellent position through reviews of the installed client base , support contract status, spare part availability, costs and service intervention rates to be able to help develop and manage such a roadmap.

Unless you have unlimited resource, cash and time, (in which case where do we find the application form?) the funnel of innovative ideas at the first phase will be whittled down through each successive phase.

Between each of these phases 1 through 5, there are, go no-go decision points (concept, feasibility, launch and support) at which time the business will need to determine if the project continues or is rejected. The exact structure of these decision points is not really crucial but understanding what the business must gather to be able to make an informed decision, to maximise opportunity and minimise risk most definitely is.

These decision points bridge the phases by posing such questions as - can this innovation/idea be packaged into a concept? Now that the product concept has been defined in more detail is the project still feasible? Will it move the business forward, make money? Now that we have developed this product is it ready to launch? are the necessary elements in place? Now the product is being used at what point will we stop providing support, or exit the product? When we stop support how do we dispose of the product?

The acronym ABCDE - All Business groups provide Checklists and Deliverables before Entering next phase – does provide a very simple way of summarising these go no-go points. The service function involved in the ‘innovation to disposal’ lifecycle process needs to be able to provide the appropriate check and deliverables list for each of these phases that reflects their tasks and recognises the relationship with all of the functional links in the business chain.

In today’s highly competitive global markets, companies must meet the increasing demands of customers to rapidly and continually develop, launch and improve products and services. Those in-house service businesses that add no value to the process and choose to accept the as-delivered product on launch day will ultimately be replaced by third party, commodity styled service deliverers.

Service is a superb asset for product design, manufacturing and supplier organisations and it is able to play an invaluable role throughout all phases of the product’s complete lifecycle; looking at innovative business models, challenging the status-quo, developing reliability, usability, serviceability and profitability features within product and services, providing voice of the customer feedback and developing knowledge flow channels into the business.

By developing these internal and external links into the lifecycle chain process, service can ensure that the business is in strong position to provide a total, differentiated solution for their customers and stakeholders.