Do You Flinch When You Hear 'Design Review'?

Manufacturing.net
Sept 2, 2011

To get the most out of your design reviews, employ a diversified panel of design expertise, stay focused on the purpose of the review, eliminate the “check-the-box” behavior, and ensure your panel approaches the review with a mindset of enhancing the design.

In my career I have participated in countless design reviews. Many were very constructive, while others were disastrous. In an age where we often focus on value-added activity and trim out concepts of “quality by inspection” the often-painful design review activity gets a great deal of scrutiny and criticism.

I am the first person to recommend the elimination of non-value-added activity and to try and find a way to eliminate inspections for quality. In some organizations, that idea means the engineering design review should go.

However, I’m of a mind that design reviews are a critical component of a robust design process. How can I say one thing and believe the other? It’s simple. Design reviews, done correctly, are absolutely value added and are part of the process of improving designs, not just a process of inspecting designs.

Take a moment and reflect on your organization’s design reviews of late. When the call goes out for design reviews, do people volunteer, or do they hide in the break room, find excuses to visit the manufacturing floor for a while, or begin scheduling vacation? Are they fun, or are they painful?

If you read my posts, you’ve heard me say before; pain is the indicator of waste. If your design reviews are painful, then chances are they are wasteful. Let’s examine some of the common sources of waste in design reviews and discuss how to eliminate them. Then, I’d like to share some of the design review practices that I have witnessed to be most effective and sometimes fun.

First, let’s look at some common sources of waste and pain in design reviews. I submit the following for your consideration:

• Preparation for the review.
• “Did you do,” check-the-box phenomenon.
• Detailed inspections of design models or drawings.
• Chaotic or long, unstructured meetings.
• Non-constructive interrogations.
• Escapes or design defects that happen anyway.

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