Platforms, The Ultimate DFM for Rapid Product Realization: A Case Study of Outdoor Electronics Cabinet Development in Lucent Technologies

Developing the right products with higher quality in a shorter period of time at a lower cost than competitors is what every product development team is dreaming about. One way that can help is to develop multilpe products with a common proven-in engine or "platform", for different applications and different market segments. Facing tough competition, the Network Products Group of Lucent Technologies in 1996 redesigned an entire family of outdoor electronic cabinets based on platforms. The first of the family took about the same development interval as in the pre-platform era. The second and third cabinets needed only about 25% of the development interval of the first. The fourth cabinet, however, consumed less than 10% development interval compared to the first cabinet; only 16 new sheet metal parts had to be designed out of 202 parts. In addition, all cabinets now have many fewer parts with more common parts as well as the same assembly architecture, thus reducing both the fixed and variable manufacturing cost. The purpose of this paper is to share the experiences of the development team and describe a robust, step-by-step process that ensures the success of platform development.