Reflection - Learning Launch

Challenge    I am a member of a small company that specializes in manufacturing custom PCBs

(Printed Circuit Boards) for any customer, usually electronic hobbyists, provided that

they send the correct information about their PCB design, such as the Gerber file

(electronic file that provides all the necessary information about the custom PCB

design such as, dimensions, position of copper pads, traces, etc).     The main problem that our company is facing is that many of our customers

complain about the long manufacturing time, about 2 weeks average for a mid size

custom PCB. For a frame of reference, large companies like JLC PCB usually take

less than 4 days to manufacture. Consequently this long manufacturing time has

affected our profits, since we are not able to have a large number of customers at

the same time.     Selection    To try to solve this issue our team used the tools of design thinking. Fast forwarding

a few months of design thinking activities and tools, we were ready to try the learning

launch tool. Generally speaking the learning launch tool is an experiment meant to

test an idea that we came up with in the previous design thinking activities, without

spending a lot of money or our time, since we are a small company with just a few

employees.      Application    Our idea was to improve the workflow of our manufacturing process, which was

causing the main time issue. Since we could not afford to buy higher quality

equipment that would, just by themselves, automate most of the process and lower

significantly our manufacturing time, we needed to use our own equipment and rely

on improving our logistics.    That's where the learning launch tool was applied, we came up with the idea of

creating an assembly line, just like the Ford assembly line, in which each employee

would have a specific job in the manufacturing process, before that, the same person

would do the entire process by themself. So our team rearranged the location of our

equipment and divided our workspace into sections in which each part of the

assembly process would be executed.

This tested our assumption that we were losing a lot of time in the previous

manufacturing method and that the new assembly line was almost three times faster

than before, therefore, without spending any money on new machines, our team was

able to shorten the manufacture time and also get more customers, consequently

improve our profit margin.     Insight & Approach    By applying the learning launch tool our team realised that we don’t need to spend a

lot of money to improve our workflow drastically and that logistics take a very

important part in business and manufacturing.    The success of this process has shown us that design thinking tools are almost

universal and flexible, as they can serve both large companies like IBM as well as

our small company of only 10 employees.    Furthermore we also considered implementing design thinking in other departments

of our business, such as marketing, in which we would apply the tool of market

research and interviews to have a more broad understanding about our customer’s

needs.


Reflection - Learning Launch Challenge I am a member of a small company that specializes in manufacturing custom PCBs ( Printed Circuit Boards ) for any customer , usually electronic hobbyists , provided that they send the correct information about their PCB design , such as the Gerber file ( electronic file that provides all the necessary information about the custom PCB design such as , dimensions , position of copper pads , traces , etc ) . The main problem that our company is facing is that many of our customers complain about the long manufacturing time , about 2 weeks average for a mid size custom PCB . For a frame of reference , large companies like JLC PCB usually take less than 4 days to manufacture . Consequently this long manufacturing time has affected our profits , since we are not able to have a large number of customers at the same time . Selection To try to solve this issue our team used the tools of design thinking . Fast forwarding a few months of design thinking activities and tools , we were ready to try the learning launch tool . Generally speaking the learning launch tool is an experiment meant to test an idea that we came up with in the previous design thinking activities , without spending a lot of money or our time , since we are a small company with just a few employees . Application Our idea was to improve the workflow of our manufacturing process , which was causing the main time issue . Since we could not afford to buy higher quality equipment that would , just by themselves , automate most of the process and lower significantly our manufacturing time , we needed to use our own equipment and rely on improving our logistics . That 's where the learning launch tool was applied , we came up with the idea of creating an assembly line , just like the Ford assembly line , in which each employee would have a specific job in the manufacturing process , before that , the same person would do the entire process by themself . So our team rearranged the location of our equipment and divided our workspace into sections in which each part of the assembly process would be executed . This tested our assumption that we were losing a lot of time in the previous manufacturing method and that the new assembly line was almost three times faster than before , therefore , without spending any money on new machines , our team was able to shorten the manufacture time and also get more customers , consequently improve our profit margin . Insight & Approach By applying the learning launch tool our team realised that we do n’t need to spend a lot of money to improve our workflow drastically and that logistics take a very important part in business and manufacturing . The success of this process has shown us that design thinking tools are almost universal and flexible , as they can serve both large companies like IBM as well as our small company of only 10 employees . Furthermore we also considered implementing design thinking in other departments of our business , such as marketing , in which we would apply the tool of market research and interviews to have a more broad understanding about our customer ’s needs .