This paper was written as part ofthe Boston University Manufacturing Roundtable Project on Product Design and Manufacturing Management. Principallnvestiga­tors: Professors Stephen R. Rosenthal and Merrill Ebner. The paper is based on data collectedfrom the companies that participated in this research project and the considerable support and review of the indi­viduals from each ofthese companies who worked on this Roundtable Project.

© 1990. Boston University. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means -- electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express permission of the Boston University Manufacturing Roundtable.

The Design

and

Development

of Agfa

Con1XJgraphic's

CG9400

Imagesetter

Mohan V.

Tatikonda

Boston University

under the direction of

Stephen R.

Rosenthal

Boston University

August 1990

THE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF

AGFA COMPOGRAPHIC'S CG9400 IMAGESETTER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abst ract i

1. Company Profile 1 1.1 Compugraphic Profile. 1 1.2 Ownership and Revenues 2 1.3 Markets 2

2. Origins of the Product 3 2.1 Electronic Pre-Press 3 2.2 Initial Concept 4 2.3 Concept Development and Feasibility Tests 8 2.4 Business Plan 17

3. Organizational Approach 22 3.1 The Role of the Program Manager 23 3.2 The Product Development Team 24 3.3 The Product Development Schedule and Process 27

4. The Product Design/Development Process 29 4.1 Design Engineering Organization 29 4.2 Activities After Business Plan 31

5. The Manufacturing Design/Development Process 38 5.1 The Operations Organization 38 5.2 Tooling Development 41 5.3 Parts Procurement and Production Control 48 5.4 AME Activities Through First AME Prototypes 49 5.5 Continuing AME Ramp-Up Activity 53 5.6 Activities After Acceptance 65

6. Product and Project Assessment 68 6.1 Market Impact 68 6.2 New Product Development Assessment 69

Exhibits

Appendices

Exhibits

1. Generalized Electronic Pre-Press System

2. _GraphicSetter Opto-Mechanical Functional System Diagram

3. GraphicSetter Engine (Electrical Interfaces)

4. Side View of Internal Product

5. Proposed Product Appearance

6. Planned vs. Actual Functional Involvement Timelines

7. Functional Area Task Responsibilities Relating to New Product Development and Commercialization

8. Brief Biographical Sketches of Primary Development Team Members

9. Gantt Charts of Product Development--Longitudinal View

10. Summary Milestone Timeline Chart--Concept & Feasibility

11. Summary Timeline Chart--Events After Business Plan Approval

12. Design Engineering Group Organization Chart

13. Operations Organization Structure

14. Operations Individuals Dedicated To The 9400

Appendices

1. Electronic Pre-Press System Description

2. GraphicSetter Specifications

Abstract

CG9400 Imagesetter: . Agfa Compugraphic

In 1985, Agfa Compugraphic, a worldwide leader in the design and manufacture of electronic pre-press equipment, identified a market opportunity for a high quality, moderately priced imagesetter. This product would apply both text and graphic images to photomedia for use in diverse publishing venues. While they neld a majority share domestically and internationally, they needed to achieve low unit production cost to remain viable in this market. Customers were looking for value, high product compatibility with industry standards and low product downtimes. In addition, customers desired products embodying the latest photographic technologies. Compugraphic, long known for innovative and highly successful publishing system products, had a recent history of late new product introductions. This problem, coupled with a finite market window, encouraged the organization to rationalize their new product response and thereby introduce the new version in the next two years.

First, the company reviewed competitor product capabilities and existing and new product technologies. In order to maintain a technological lead over competitors, to set a base of learning to support future products, and to reduce total product cost, a new technology was embraced. This was new laser diode technology that also required associated optics and motors. Vendors were invited to aid in product concept development. The development continued on two separate but related tracks, one devoted to hardware and the other devoted to software. A number of alternative approaches to design of particular modules were evaluated. In some cases, modules were borrowed from older recent products to reduce development effort. Special software was developed to aid in analysis of optics and photomedia systems. Design approaches were defended before individuals from several functional groups. Several iterations of prototype modules and full systems were made, some with active participation of manufacturing engineers.

Many new manufacturing tools were developed to support assembly and alignment of the new product. There was active involvement with vendors since many custom parts were required. Vendors were assisted in development of their own tooling and inspection practices by Agfa Compugraphic personnel. External consultants were brought in to aid in design of certain tools. Technicians were trained in calibration and operation of assembly, who in turn trained shop floor personnel. Tooling ramp-up activities took place in an advanced manufacturing shop at company headquarters. Once fully debugged, the manufacturing process was transferred in whole, equipment and personnel, to a full volume manufacturing site.

The introduction of the CG9400 was highly successful in tenns of market response, which exceeded sales forecasts dramatically. The fl.1l1l brought the latest technology to its customers and at a modest price. The product achieved virtual 100% yield on installation and service call rates lower than targeted However, the product reached the marketplace nine months late and was slightly above goal unit production cost. Much of this time lag arose due to hardware design surprises and major delays resulting from the parallel software development.

The Challenge

There was a projected short time frame for successful introduction of the product. This was coupled with pressure from the parent group, Agfa, to minimize product development times and guarantee high product quality. In addition, the product used new product technologies, and required related new process capabilities.

The Response

Agfa Compugraphic recognized that simultaneous development activity was needed to achieve this shorter development time frame, and planned overlapping development efforts for design and manufacturing engineering. Manufacturing engineers helped critique designs from a producability perspective. Production Control personnel aided design engineers in parts procurement and development of parts lists. This activity also greatly aided in having early stocks of production materials. Design engineers worked to guarantee manufacturability and congruence with manufacturing needs. Design engineers assisted manufacturing engineers in tooling development and assembly of ramp-up prototypes. Manufacturing engineers, with their early knowledge of the product, were able to start development of process tooling early. Vendor production of custom parts also started early. External capabilities were used to facilitate ramp-up.

The new technologies provided a number of development surprises, increasing total design and manufacturing engineering efforts. Considerable experience was gained in the characterization of photomedia and optics. Certain design vagaries of these technologies were unearthed and understood before design revisions and resulting process changes could be put in place. There was considerable interaction with and learning on the part of a number of vendors. Modules borrowed from other recent products turned out to have previously unnoticed peculiarities requiring resolution foreffective use in the CG9400. Manufacturing engineering gained the first time knowledge of assembly of certain optical components. The design and manufacturing capabilities gained

i i

from the CG9400 development would aid Afga Compugraphic greatly in development of downstream products.

The Issues

The Agfa Compugraphic case study highlights a set of issues associated with new product introductions that are not uncommon in traditionally engineering driven organizations:

recognizing the need to tie product technology choice with market desires, and then selecting appropriate product technologies to meet future product requirements.

experience with and learning from simultaneous work of design engineering, manufacturing engineering and field service groups.

gaining benefits from early involvement of production planning and control personnel in design.

implementation and learning associated with first time use of CAD.

risk taking via early parts and tooling procurement.

In addition, the CG9400 new product development in the context of the development process histories of its predecessor and successor products shows great learning in terms of product and process technologies and methods of new product development. This learning would help Agfa Compugraphic tremendously in development of downstream products, and shows that each new product introduction cycle can be leveraged to further build capabilities to support future development efforts.

iii

1. COMPANY PROFILE

1.1 COMPUGRAPHIC PROFILE

Compugraphic (CG) Corporation was founded in 1960, and developed a reputation for introducing innovative publishing system products. CG literature states that they are the:

"world's leading supplier of electronic publishing and composition systems. These systems merge text and graphics in an electronic or photographic master document. From this master document, a variety of printed materials such as manuals, brochures, newspapers, magazines, and books are reproduced."

Compugraphic provides associated supplies, accessories and options. Lease, rental and purchase programs exist, and CG has a financing wing to assist customers' acquisition programs. In addition, CG' s Type Division designs and markets type fonts. Compugraphic's type library is the world's largest, boasting 1700 different type-faces, all of which are available via telephone software support.

Compugraphic has tended towards packaging leading edge technologies in its products. From its inception to about 1970, CG-manufactured systems were compatible with (electronics) industry standard setters. Since about 1970 they manufactured and marketed computer-driven phototypesetters that generate text using concentrated light rays on photosensitive materials. The resulting high-resolution master copies are then used to make printing plates.

After its initial period of product planning in close coordination with industry standards, CG moved to increasing levels of proprietary equipment and protocols in the 70' sand early 80' s. Since these products did not rely on industry standards, CG took bold steps in developing and marketing products based on proprietary specifications and standards. Compugraphic's systems of the last decade (1980's) allow users to streamline the production cycle for design, publishing and printing by electronically merging text and graphics, which eliminates numerous time-consuming, costly and error-prone intermediate manual steps. Compugraphic started emphasizing system modularity in the early 1980's, and moved to emphasize product compatibility by the mid 1980's.

The industry market outlook for the later 1980's was generally strong because of increased corporate publishing. However, mid 1980' s sales were down in part due to the general

1

downturn in the computer industry. As CG states in their 1986 annual report:

"The market for high~quality, cost-effective electronic printing and composition systems is expanding because of the growing number of applications and the increased volume of material published by corporations. Corporate electronic publishing currently constitutes one of the fastest-growing segments within the new electronic market.

The corporate headquarters is located in Wilmington, MA. CG employs approximately 4000 people in its manufacturing sites in Massachusetts (3 locations) and Ireland. Training sites and distribution centers exist around the world.

1.2 OWNERSHIP AND REVENUES

Compugraphic was an independent company from its inception through the 1970's. During the 1980's, Agfa (Belgium) increased ownership in CG. Agfa gained controlling interest in CG in 1981, but retained CG's president and administration for some time. By 1986, Agfa gained 90% interest in the company, and forced considerable restructuring. In January of 1989, Agfa completely took over CG, removed the president and retained only 3 of 15 vice-presidents. Now, CG is called Agfa Compugraphic. Agfa in turn is owned by Bayer (Germany).

Recently (since about 1985) Compugraphic's sales growth has diminished. For example, revenues in 1987 were $367 million and in 1986 were $341 million, whereas 1985 revenues were $400 million. This was partly due to the general downturn in the computer industry and computer-related systems. Lack of compatibility of CG products with other systems and certain industry standards, coupled with delayed new product introductions added to CG's problems. The customer and field service sections of the organization were a major source of revenue, totalling $73 million in 1986.

1.3 MARKETS

Around 1985, at the time of the GraphicSetter inception, the composition and typesetting systems market was estimated to be approximately 1.5 billion dollars. Compugraphic's markets include corporate customers such as commercial printers, daily and weekly newspapers and tabloids, in-plant printing operations, advertising agencies, graphic designers, publishers and commercial typographers. Specific market segments included: newspaper, traditional commercial, technical electronic publishing systems, desktop publishing and traditional inplant publishing. Significant growth was expected in most international markets

2

while great domestic growth was expected in desktop and electronic publishing areas.

At the time, CG held between 20 and -30% world share, with Linotype (their nearest direct competitor) at about half that. Other major competitors included Varityper and Scangraphic. A number of compet i tor firms had smaller shares, and some were limited geographically (domestic vs. international). Firms varied in their offering of text or graphics devices, levels of field service capability, and systems support such as providing additional system stage elements, media, type-fonts, and chemicals.

Some firms were particularly strong in either high-end markets or low-end markets. High-, middle- and low-end markets were differentiated by the degree to which they required sophist icated compos it ion (integrated front -end) systems, high speed output, high volume output, precision graphics and text, color or only black & white capabilities. A high-end customer would typically want all of the capabilities, and would be willing to spend accordingly. They might purchase an imagesetter system costing over $100,000. On the other hand, low-end customers required less sophisticated functional capabilities and output quality, and would spend less than $40,000 for an imagesetter alone.

2. ORIGINS OF THE PRODUCT

2.1 ELECTRONIC PRE-PRESS

A publisher uses many different electronic pre-press (EPP) devices to create, modify and print text and graphics. A complete pre-press system includes input devices, interpreters, output devices and developers. Input deyices, also somet imes called "front ends", can be scanners, personal computers (such as Macintoshes), and/or special graphics workstations that help input, create, merge and modify text and graphics. "Interpreter" [author's term] devices then act as translators by taking the text and graphical information from the front-end and converting it to a form that an output device can understand. An output device then takes this information and "writes" the text and graphics onto media. These devices are sometimes called writing engines.

While certain output devices such as laser printers write on plain paper, most high quality and high volume applications require output devices that write onto photographic media such as film or photographic plates. The photomedia then must be developed using traditional photographic processes before being used as a printing plate for a printing press.

3

Not all EPP devices are compatible with other system elements. They must use a common language or use appropriate interpreters. Interpreters themselves -are only capable of converting certain languages. Therefore, EPP system customers are very concerned about purchasing compatible system modules. In addition, graphics electronic standards were changing rapidly in the early and mid 1980' s. Compugraphic' s proprietary graphics language was called CGScript. Other languages available at the time included Adobe PostScript and Interpress.

Compugraphic traditionally had interpreter and output device EPP functions available in one integrated unit. They would refer to this whole unit generically as an output device. This case report describes the development of a particular output device called the CG9400. For a more complete description of the elements within an electronic pre-press system, see Appendix 1. For a generalized system configuration chart, see Exhibit 1.

2.2 INITIAL CONCEPT

The outlay for the development of a new product can range from five to ten million dollars and take more than two years of organizational effort. Compugraphic had a planning committee that met bimonthly dedicated to product planning strategy called the GPC. It served as a multifunctional review group with a strategic view that considered and approved new product concepts for development and commercialization. This group was led by Carl Dantas, the President of CG, and was supported by his staff. Other functions involved were Marketing, Manufacturing and R&D. R&D regularly presented technical ideas and results of recent research by design engineers and engineering groups expert in certain fields. R&D's permanent representatives to this group were the Business Chief Engineers (BCEs), high ranking development managers who would consider the macro-level aspects of new product development costs, and technical and human requirements all in context of the competitive environment. Marketing regularly announced market research findings, identified and communicated customer needs, and packaged technical ideas into product concepts. Manufacturing advised about the manufacturability and cost of proposed products. Dantas was a "hands-on" manager for product planning, and this committee served as a direct link to executive review. This product concept committee held rather formal meetings.

It is this group that in an output device strategy session of April, 1985, spawned the idea of the "GraphicSetter" (later to be called the "9400"). They had been debating for some time whether the next product they introduced should be a "bread and butter" device or a high-end unit. Several presentations and meetings focused on this issue. It was decided that the GraphicSetter should meet the needs of middle and lower market customers, and

4

that it would replace the existing CG8400 product in the product line. In addition, it would be sold at a significantly lower price than the higher function output device called the CG9600 that was in the design stage at that time.

For the next few months, initial product requirements (functional capabilities) were defined and market product placement goals were further articulated. Marketing, from its experience with the 8400 and other products, identified the extra capabilities and refinements that customers wanted. They also relied on direct customer input--feedback from the installed user base was gathered and summarized by a market research group of several people who conducted phone surveys and distributed questionnaires.

The product recognition phase continued for several months, and the product concept slowly developed. R&D made several presentations, including a major one in July, 1985, to the GPC on possible technical approaches to meet product goals. Some in the company argue that it was at this presentation and review that the GraphicSetter concept really came onto its own. A one page very high level specification sheet was put together at this time to define the GraphicSetter's proposed capabilities.

Only a few major players were active in furthering the development of the GraphicSetter definition. Jeff Elliot, a program manager who reported to the Vice President for Product Planning, took on the role of market analyst and project planner. Richard (Dick) Cashman, a high ranking output devices design engineering group head, took on the primary engineering leadership role. Jack McGrath, an opto-mechanical design engineer, and Dave Larsen, a mechanical design engineer, also worked on the initial concept development. Larsen had recently completed his work on the Scanner2000 design project. Very few other design engineers were involved. While several spent a few hours now and then reviewing ideas and aiding in brainstorming, they were generally preoccupied with completing the CG8000 output device or the Scanner2000 input scanning device design projects that were in their final stages.

The GraphicSetter, also called the GS at the time, was "open for technology". Any technology could be proposed to meet the proposed product function and cost. At the time, the goal was to achieve a unit production cost (direct material, direct labor and direct overhead) in the $4000 to $5000 range, with a sales price of about $25,000. Keeping this in mind, the primary up-front design concept issue to be resolved was what "light source" would be used to write on the photographic media. Technology options that existed included cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), helium-neon lasers and the more recently available laser diodes. A complete generation of Compugraphic output devices (the 8000 series) used CRTs quite successfully.

5

The most recent new product in development, the 9600, used a helium-neon laser (nicknamed the "hee-nee" and often noted by its chemical reference HeNe). This and the Scanner2000 were the first Compugraphic experiences with lasers. Specifically, the 9600 was CG's first such output device experience. Initial ideas from R&D focused on the laser diode because customers seemed to want a laser technology. Even though many customers did not really understand what the laser diode was or what it could do, they wanted it because it was thought to be the next technological frontier. So, CRT usage was not an option. The laser diode was preferred to the HeNe because it was thought to be cheaper and possibly more reliable, characteristics important if they were to develop a product for the defined market segments.

CG, while not experienced with the laser diode, had some awareness of it. Laser diodes of various sorts had been available since the early 1980's. Compact disks were made possible due to this type of laser technology. In addition, a competitor, Ultre, used the laser diode in a very low function output device. CG had reason to believe that it was a viable technology.

Other major technological issues considered at that time centered on how the "light" would be moved to write on the media, and on the related issue of how the media itself would be physically moved. Major media transport technology choices included: use of a flatbed, where the media remains flat on the bed surface and does not move at all; use of a drum, where the media lies in a cylinder and does not move; and use of a capstan system, where the media is pinched and moved via a roller system, very similar to a typewriter. The engineers tended towards use of a capstan system because the 9600 product recently in development used that approach. It was felt that the capstan, or "leading" (said, 'ledding'), system could be borrowed and so would save time and development cost since it had already been designed and debugged. By December, 1985, these major engineering choices had been discussed and related electrical issues had been considered.

Reyiew Presentation

A Review Presentation was given to the GPC in early December, 1985. Jack Elliot reviewed the product strategy, the proposed specifications, a list of options for capabilities that could be included in or with the device, and the status of the development. This presentation served as a progress report and was the first time that major development and commercialization issues had been described and considered collectively and systematically. It was also a milestone of sorts because it ended the product recognition (identification) activities, signalling the start of detailed product conceptual development, empirical product design feasibility analysis, and market analysis efforts.

The strategic goals the product would serve were articulated. The GraphicSetter was to bring graphics (not just text)

6

capabilities to the $SO-$60K system customer (low to middle end market s) . For this reason, the product had been t it led the "GraphicSetter" and also referred to as an "image-setter" rather than the traditional "typesetter". Previously, integrated text & graphics capabilities were not available at this price. In addition, the product was to provide a motivation for high-end users of the 8400 and other products to upgrade. The product was to respond to competitive pressures from similar products being introduced soon. Finally, it was felt that the product was an essential part of Compugraphic's existing system modularity plan.

The presentation described the GraphicSetter as "a mid-range output device capable of producing text, line art, and halftone graphics, with an end-user cost of less than $30K." Note that the cost of the unit alone is about half of the full system cost. Major performance requirements listed included 1200 OPI (dots per inch) capability and 5 inches per minute media output. The device was not intended to support color applications.

Various options were presented as elements that could be put in the device or made available with the device, and what the associated hardware and software development requirements would be for each option. The major options listed included: a "proofer", a less sharp (only 300 or 400 OPI) plain paper laser printer that would allow low cost proofing capability; the ability to output structured graphics (graphics a user creates via a front-end workstation, as compared to "half-tone" graphics which are scanned in); direct entry to support a keyboard and display (this would be a complete EPP system, but would be only capable of text manipulation and output); additional rigid disk storage so that more fonts would be available; and other options.

One of the options defined how the device itself would be configured. This approach was titled the "Stand Alone Engine," and would have the "writing engine" part of the GraphicSetter physically separate of the interpreter part. While this would rob the output device of interpreter capabilities, it would work in a modular system where the interpreter was a separate but compatible unit. This approach would isolate the software-based "smarts" of the interpreter from the "dumb" mechanical "engine".

The presentation by Elliot included proposed input languages for the whole device. First, the CG propr ietary language (CGScript) was to be used so that the device would be compatible with existing installed Compugraphic systems. Later, the device was to also be made available with the capability to understand the Interpress graphical language. Question mark areas included future compatibility with the PostScript language, or whether a UNIX operating system base should be used for the interpreter.

Finally, the presentation stated that engineers were available to continue and complete the study of GraphicSetter feasibility. These people were included in the 1986 budgets. A schedule for the feasibility study was to be completed by mid­

7

December and more design engineers were joining the project. Development personnel were exploring alternatives for the writing engine design. The laser diode and associated photomedia were also being investigated internally.

======================================================= PRIMARY PARTICIPANTS IN GRAPHICSETTER PLANNING--INITIAL

STAGES OF CONCEPT (April 1985 -- December 1985)

Carl Dantas President and his staff

Jeff Elliot Program Manager, reported to the VP for Product Planning

Richard Cashman Design Engineering team manager

Jack McGrath Design Engineer, primary technical conceptualizer

Dave Larsen Design Mechanical Engineer =======================================================

2.3 CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND FEASIBILITY TESTS

Slowly, design engineers left the 8000 product (with a few leaving the Scanner2000) as their responsibilities ended to join the GraphicSetter concept and feasibility efforts. Engineers "phased in" over approximately three months. A few were available and started work in mid- and late-December, 1985. In January, 1986, a detailed schedule was developed listing concept and feasibility activities and resource allocations such as design engineering personnel time for the next six months. The design engineers were guided in their efforts by the CEDA product definition, a document made available in January listing at a high level the functional capabilities to be achieved by the GraphicSetter.

Starting in mid-December and continuing through June, 1986, much of the remaining conceptual design work and feasibility tests were started and largely completed. At Compugraphic, a "concept" is a proposed design approach and "feasibility" means to test this approach (sometimes in a rough manner) to see if it would actually work. The testing via lab work (called "empirical" or "experimental" testing) is extensive, and is sometimes augmented by analytical work, such as computer simulation or mathematical modeling. The main objective at this point is to take the major theoretical concepts developed and to prove whether they would work or not.

Only key design elements are investigated, that is, those with functional capabilities and costs critical to the proposed

8

product. Particular design choices would be "breadboarded", which means to mock up a rough working version in the laboratory. All of the individual modules were "breadboarded", but not at a system level. The objective of the breadboard activity was to roughly prove that the key technical elements work. Many off-the-shelf parts were used, and only modules were completed. Older product prototypes (such as one from the 9600) in some cases were borrowed and "kluged" appropriately just to show that the design intent (concept) could be realized, that is, that the design was indeed feasible.

In many cases, a number of conceptual approaches were empirically tested and compared to lead to a preferred, feasible and defensible design concept. When required, external parties such as potential vendors were brought in to provide their insight. If after this concept development and feasibility testing stage the design engineers could not show the product concept to meet functional and/or cost targets, Compugraphic could modify or terminate the new product program. The feasibility activities also served to bring in great awareness of the major design issues, risks and items that might require further study. Though not specifically constitute initial design.

referred to as such, these activities

Writing Engine Concept Paper

The "GraphicSetter released in mid-May, 1986.

Writing Engine This paper was

Concept" document was compiled and written by

six design engineers, but represented the work of approximately 20 design engineers and technicians. Some of the senior engineers who did work leading to this paper included Jack McGrath, Mark Barrett (electrical engineer), Howard Okoomian (optical engineer) and Phil Rombult (mechanical engineer). This concept document summarized the concept development and feasibility efforts of the previous four or five months. It defended the feasibility of the product as a whole and also provided support for particular design choices. It also listed potential risk areas, cost issues and topics to st udy in the future. The concept paper clearly separated the writing engine from the interpreter. This would provide marketing advantages such as increased flexibility for customers and opportunities for non-CG system users to enter into CG product use due to the modularity. Design concerns were voiced, some of which are listed later in this section.

The concept paper provided a history of the progression of design ideas, empirical tests and comparisons of options. This history was documented in an expansive accompanying technical appendix. The paper also discussed design philosophy--telling why certain approaches were taken, and over what alternatives. While the paper generally discussed product and module funct ions , it also listed high level inputs and outputs for modules, discussed the nature of the design of modules, related how that module is used, remarked about the critical parts that make up a module, and

9

even went so far as to provide functional specifications for some module capabilities.

As early as December, 1985, a number of design issues had been considered, though no particular design decision had been set in stone at that point. Firstly, they felt that a laser diode should be used as the light source because it allowed greater electrical control and lower part cost than the helium-neon laser, in turn cutting total product cost. The direct electrical control leads to a reduction in associated materials costs of at least $600. Also, the laser diode would cost about $70, one-third of the HeNe diode. While CG had no previous experience with such laser diodes, they felt that they had enough technological know­how to manage with the new device. They also saw it as a platform for future products, so the learning gained from working with the diodes for this product could be amortized over several products.

To gain a better understanding of laser diodes, laser vendors such as Sharp were invited to provide insight into their product and how it might operate in the CG device. They assisted in research, sometimes in CG' s design labs. Also, laser diode researchers at M. I . T. were contacted and these people provided assistance.

Implicit in the concept paper was the use of the laser diode. The system design approach was stated. The engineers hoped to determine the combination of design parameters required to meet acceptable output quality at lowest cost. In trying to achieve this, they considered eleven principal design parameters that interact with and trade-off of each other. Some of the less technical parameters included: size of optical elements, number of components, compactness of the product, and total cost.

Product Functional System

The major optical and mechanical elements of their proposed design are shown in Exhibit 2. The writing engine uses two laser diodes, one is the "write" laser, and the other is the "reference" laser. Both of these laser diodes remain fixed--they do not move at all. However, the beams emitted from them are electrically controlled and may be turned on and off. The write laser emits a laser beam (like a flashlight emits a light beam) that eventually is routed to actually contact a piece of photomedia. By contacting photomedia such as film or photographic paper, the beam actually writes on the media.

The reference beam also emits a laser beam, but does not write on media, rather, it eventually impacts a detector. This detector acts like it is the photomedia, and information that is output from the detector is used to better control the write laser beam by turning it on or off at slightly different times, and to move the media very slightly to the left or right. This is done

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to make up for small errors in the location of the write beam's impact on the media.

Each laser diode emits a "divergent" beam. In essence, this means that the diameter of the light beam increases as it gets farther from the laser diode itself. This property is not desirable for this application. To make each light beam maintain a constant diameter, the laser beams go through collimating lenses which make the light "parallel" and so having constant diameter. A beam that has gone through a collimating lens is called a "collimated beam".

The two collimated beams then go through another optical element called a beam combiner. This element moves the two beams so that they are much closer together, and may be thought of as nearly combined into one beam. This beam then hits a scanning opt ic. The scanning opt ic is attached to a spinner motor and rotates with it. As the optic rotates, the light beam reflects off of it. If the optic did not move, the light beam would reflect to the same location. But since the optic rotates, the light beam reflects and continually draws a line of light on some surface. This line of light is called a scan line.

The laser beam reflected off of the scanning optic then goes through a scan lens. It then bounces off (reflects off) of a first periscope mirror. The laser beam then reflects off of a second periscope mirror. At this second periscope mirror, due to its special design, the write and reference laser beams which were temporarily combined actually separate. The write laser beam reflects off of the mirror and goes to impact the photomedia. The media is sitting on the capstan. The capstan cylinder rotates, and is rotated by an attached stepper motor. Unlike the spinner motor attached to the scanning optic, the stepper motor does not rotate in a continuous fashion. Instead, it rotates in very short "steps". In other words, the motor rotates briefly, stops briefly, rotates briefly, stops briefly, and so on. One may think of this as the rotating capstan cylinder in an electric typewriter.

The reference laser beam, now separated from the write laser beam at the second periscope mirror, goes on to reflect off of another mirror, and then goes through an encoder. This encoder modifies the laser beam. The faster the laser beam travels, the more the laser beam gets modified. The modified laser beam then hits a reference beam detector that takes the beam as input and then provides electrical signals as output. This detector is in the same plane as the photomedia being written on, and the electrical signals provide a measure of the accuracy of the write beam's location of impact on the media.

There are many important electrical issues also, but do not show up as physical elements in the opto-mechanical functional

1 1

system. Exhibit 3 provides a sense of the ma jor electrical components in the product.

Major Product Modules

The section above described the major physical components of the product and how they function as a system. These components had to be designed and later manufactured as elements within individual module unit assemblies.

The concept paper listed and described in engineering detail the five major writing engine modules defined below.

The Beam Generation Module (BGM) accepts electronic signals originating from the interpreter device. It then uses these signals to "drive" the laser diodes. In essence, the incoming electrical signals are converted into resulting laser beams. This module requires the laser diodes, the collimating lenses and associated electronics.

The Beam Control Module controls the laser beam. It does so by accepting as input electrical signals from the reference beam detector and making available as output information which is used to better control the laser diodes and the photomedia movement itself. This module includes the reference beam encoder, detector and associated electronics.

The Beam Scan Module (BSM) consists of the scanning optics and the spin motor that rotates the optics. It also requires the scan lens and related electronics. The BSM receives laser diode light and reflects it in a manner causing it to scan on the photomedia in a straight line.

The Media Position and Control Module consists of the system that holds and moves the photomedia. It is also called the "media transport system", and is highly dependent on the method of writing chosen. Knowing that a laser diode would be used, the design engineers considered and tested seven different media position and control approaches. They decided to borrow the leading system from the 9600, which they had been leaning towards even before the empirical analysis, after all. Based on a number of decision criteria, weighted relative to importance, the 9600 leading system with stepper motor ranked as the best concept by a wide margin.

The concept paper stated that this "proven design eliminates the risk and expense of development for this portion of the system." The leading system is made up of the capstan cylinder, rollers that help pinch the media to the capstan, gears, and associated electronics. The development engineers expected only to make minor modifications to the leading system. A change in the location where the light beam came in was required, as was a change in the electrical control of the capstan roller that

12

allowed the media to move at not one (as in the 9600) but two speeds (5"/minute or 2.5"/minute depending on 1200 or 2400 DPI).

The Engine Control Module is the sole interface with the interpreter, and controls the stepper motor which drives the capstan cylinder. It is made up of a microprocessor chip, firmware and associated digital electronics.

The concept report, after explaining the functional responsibilities of each module, describes:

- the major inputs to it and outputs from it

- the design approach taken for that module (description of the design concept and how the design works)

- important design issues, concerns and trade-offs

- future work to be done, risk areas and potential cost reduction opportunities for the module

- a short conclusion defending a design concept choice, stating the feasibility of the concept, or stating that additional research is required

In each case the report appendix documents the historical development of the concepts for each module. It documents the various concepts considered, tested and discarded. Breadboard test results and comparative analyses are included, as are supporting calculations and schematics.

Design Concerns

FILM. In December, 1985, Phil Rombult requested and received specification sheets from Kodak giving technical details on their films that might be used with a laser diode. At first the design engineers could not get good quality print output from the film. They assumed that the problem was with the optics configuration they had chosen, and so worked to revise and optimize the optics to get better print output. It was only after they did this that they realized that the problem at hand did not have to do with the optics, but rather the photomedia. It turned out that use of the laser diode in photo-imaging applications as for the GraphicSetter was relatively new. Few films and photopaper existed that could be used with it, and those that did exist did not provide the highest quality output.

In contrast, the ReNe laser, while relatively new, was established enough in the industry that many of its vagaries had been encountered before and a range of high quality media were available for use with it. CG recognized the laser diode film limitation early on in the concept development stage, and passed on desired film characteristic specifications to Kodak, Agfa and

13

other firms. The engineers also made certain changes in the optics to compensate for some of the media limitations. In the concept paper, Rombult writes "initial testing shows the phototypesetting paper _may limit copy -quality in demanding applications" implying only those few customers who actually push the product to the limits of its functionality will notice the inadequate output quality. This experience led Rombult and others to work to increase their analytical skills in photomedia characterization.

SCANNING OPTICS. A major problem with use of a spinning scanner optic is that the spinner motor used to rotate it will vibrate or "wobble". John Williams, an electrical engineer who worked closely with motor vendors, explained that wobble may occur in the direction of the motor's rotation and in the direction of its spindle. All motors wobble to some degree. Unfortunately, this causes the laser beam scan line to also wobble, causing poor quality output. Basically, the laser beam does not write on the media in a straight line. The reference beam system with encoder helps control the write beam and media position to reduce some effects of the wobble. However, this only helps a little, and does not solve the problem.

There are several effective ways to compensate for, or even nearly eradicate, wobble. A number of approaches were considered by the design engineers. A more expensive motor could be used to minimize wobble in the first place. This option was rejected due to its high cost. Two optical methods which compensate for wobble were also rejected due to high cost. Two other approaches were deemed viable. One would require the use of an optical prism as the scanning optic, the other would require the use of a pol~~onal

optic as the scanning optic. Two variations of the optical prism were found to be patented by other firms. CG's patent attorney had investigated this. The design engineers were left with several choices, of which they investigated two more closely. These were the scanning pol~gon and the double prism scanner.

The polygon design required the laser beam to reflect off of it, while the prism design required that the laser beam enter the prism, reflect within the prism, and then exit the prism. In both cases, the interaction of the laser beam with the scanning optic reduced the effects of motor wobble. Jack McGrath had developed the polygon approach on paper (theoretically). Both compensation approaches were tested empirically and compared on a dozen technical parameters. In many cases the polygon approach was deemed better than the prism method. In some cases there was more information for the polygon approach; for example, there was uncertainty about prism cost and ease of assembly among other aspects. Also, the prism approach would not allow for a multiple scan line. Such a multiple scan line would double the speed of output for the writing engine--the design engineers were hoping that this would be feasible. As of mid-May, 1986, the scanning

14

optic decision had not been made, and would be made pending further empirical research and wobble testing.

Costs

The concept paper also presented estimates of material, labor and overhead cost s for the development of each module, and compared these to the development costs of the 9600. Also, for about a dozen potential design changes, the probability of occurrence and potential change in direct cost were listed. The probabilities were listed qualitatively as High, Medium or Low. Only two of the potential changes listed required cost increases. Finally, the GraphicSetter writing engine project (not unit) life cycle costs were presented in summary form. A five year horizon was used, and included tooling, design engineering, and support beyond initial development requirements. Potential lower life cycle costs dependent upon certain specific cost reduction actions were also presented.

Concept Paper Conclusions

The concept paper concluded stating that the proposed design was feasible:

"Although considerable design work remains to be done, the approach outlined here contains no high risk areas and should lead to achieving the product goals" of low cost and quality performance.

While no "high" risk areas were felt to exist, they did identify three issues of concern. The primary risk area had to do with the laser beam writing spot shape. If the beam's diameter is too big, the writing on the photomedia is not fine enough, and so provides lower quality output. Also, the beam's shape must be of certain specific characteristic shape to impart an appropriate amount of laser energy onto the media. The second, but lower risk issue, had to do with assuring that the scanning optic would be as wobble-free as possible. A final risk area had to do with the performance of the collimating lenses over various operating temperatures. Further empirical and analytical work was being conducted to resolve concerns for these issues, and back up approaches were detailed.

The concept paper also provided various performance and cost trade-offs, and listed potential future design and cost reduction alternatives. It listed 2400 DPI capability as a potential product option that would not increase unit direct cost but would take more development time. An wide-media option that could be made available would have the GraphicSetter use 108 pica media rather than the standard 78 pica width. Certain market niches prefer the wider output. This option would require an approximate 25% increase in direct costs.

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At this point they stated that it was time to move on to determination of detailed design specifications. The engineers would have to decide whether to stay with the design choices advocated, and would have to determine just what approach to take for the few undecided areas. Additional development work would be necessary to finalize and verify detailed performance requirements. Specification activity essentially started at this point, and would end with the release of four system-level and dozens of module and submodule level specification reports.

The chart below gives a sense of how new the GraphicSetter was relative to the 9600 product.

=================================================================

MAJOR MODULES AND ELEMENTS FOR GRAPHICSETTER ENGINE BORROWED FROM THE 9600

MODIFICATION FROM 96QQ? REOUIRED?

Leading System YES YES Reference Encoder YES YES Light Source NO Scanning Optics NO Scan Lens YES YES Collimating Optics NO

=================================================================

Other Concept and Feasibility Actiyities

A few documents were released during the concept development and feasibility test stage. In March, 1986, a "Technical Update" presentation was given to the GPC. In April, a one-page high level "Product Assumption" sheet was released. It reiterated product specification requirements, detailed a number of other specifications for the first time, and set target product introduction and first customer ship dates (fourth quarter 1987 for introduction, first quarter 1988 for first customer ship). The product was to have graphics capabilities including halftone, tints and line art and was to accept as input languages CGScript and Interpress.

Concept and feasibility testing continued through May and June, 1986. In late May, after much discussion and debate, it was decided that the polygon optic scanning approach should be used rather than the prism optic method. In June, the polygon optic design was completed. Also in June, the Packaging Concept paper was presented. This paper considered the location of all the modules in 3-dimensional space, and provided the ideas for appropriate covers and enclosures for the product and its modules.

16

This paper is dependent on system layout work by the design engineers and aesthetic requirements communicated by marketing. See Exhibit 4 for a side view of the system layout and Exhibit 5 for the proposed external look and covers.

By June, the electrical engineering group within design engineering was reorganized. The section head went to work on the interpreter side of the project, and a senior electrical engineer, Mark Barrett, was promoted to take the electrical section leadership role. Several electrical engineers also went to the now dedicated electrical group for the interpreter. The design team head, Dick Cashman, was promoted to Business Chief Engineer. Ron Goulet, an experienced engineering leader, was brought in from his previous role as head of the recently disbanded Product Support and Engineering group to take on the leadership role for the GraphicSetter development.

Also in June, a preliminary development schedule with manpower and capital budget estimates for the whole new product development effort (design, manufacturing and other costs) was prepared. In July, the Product Concept was presented and reviewed. Also in July, Phil Rombult started a five-month effort developing the Optical System Modeler (OSM) , a sophisticated spreadsheet-based computer analysis model for optics, laser and photomedia systems. By August, a detailed design engineering work schedule and breakdown had been fully developed.

2.4 BUSINESS PLAN

On Se ptemb e r 1 0 , 1 98 6 , the Bus in e ssP1 a n for the GraphicSetter was presented and approved at a four hour meeting of the GPC. This 27-page summary document included, among many others, sections on:

- market size and growth rate projections - competitor analysis - summary of competitor prodqcts - recognized customer needs - product configuration options - product add-on options - major module technology forecasts - make vs. buy decisions/issues - engineering development requirements - manufacturing ramp-up requirements - launch strategy - forecasted sales - detailed specifications - development and launch timetable - financial plans

The approval of the Business Plan by the GPC and Carl Dantas formally sanctioned the development project and released

17

substantial funding for it. The plan served as a vehicle for economic justification of the new product development, and showed (based positive to have

on a five year horizon and traditional net present value for after-tax profits.

a market life of approximately 36 months.

hurdle rate) a The product was

At this time, Pete Schacht, a program manager who reported to Elliot, was assigned to be program manager for the GraphicSetter development. Schacht would refer to this document as "his bible"­-it would guide his decisions through the life of the development project.

Jeff Elliot was the primary writer for the business plan and had been preparing it during the previous six months. His efforts included extensive market research and sales forecasting, detailed competitor analysis of market strengths and product capabilities, and "specsmanship," the statement of required product functions. Pete Schacht assisted in development of certain sections. While the business plan review itself was quite formal, it was anticlimactic because the work leading up to the final business plan had been iterated through the GPC committee several times and so included recommended and required modifications.

The business plan stated the benefits the customer would gain from acquisition of this product. The ability to do both text and graphics can save a lot of time and money for customers that require a mix of these capabilities. Paste-up, photographic and "stripping" (placement of photographic negatives) steps are avoided. Paste-up tasks include the mechanical positioning and fastening of text and ~ art, and the creation of windows for later insertion of halftone art. This is all done on a white board which is later photographed. Many cutting, pasting, positioning and alignment tasks are avoided. Photographing the board is avoided, as are all associated photographic steps including film loading, camera exposure and lighting preparation, film development, enlarging, chemical preparation, handling and drying. A number of paste-up and photographic steps are eradicated when stripping is not required. All of this adds up to tremendous labor, material, operating space and time savings for such users.

The product strategy was restated and expanded. In particular, the GraphicSetter was:

intended to replace CGls existing 8400 output device which is CRT-based and text-only, the 9400 would have high quality text and adequate graphics capabilities

intended to meet lower- and mid-range customers (those who buy systems in the $50,000 to $60,000 range) relative to the expensive 9600 intended for larger scale customers (the 9600 does what the 9400 does but with greater speed, accuracy and additional functions)

1 8

intended to compete at a lower cost with the few competitor products that (when released) would meet its capabilities (primarily the Linotype L300)

it would support and extend the system modularity strategy

would provide a motivation for those using second generation typesetters (CRT-based devices) to upgrade

would provide both text and graphics capabilities

Clearly, fundamental product objectives included revenue maintenance, revenue growth, product replacement and modularity support.

The plan contained a competitor product analysis chart listing approximately 20 products that were in the market or soon to be released. These products were compared on about 15 technical and market attributes such as addressability (OPI) capabilities, primary light source technology, font sizes, graphics language compatibility and sales price. Compugraphic's competitors were providing or were expected to soon make available equivalent cost machines at 300 and 600 OPI, and more expensive machines at 1200 and 2400 OPI.

The GraphicSetter was the first CG device to have the interpreter and writing engine as separate devices. In composite, this was all one development project; nonetheless, the dual approach led to the occurrence of two quite separate development projects. The interpreter was named the Universal Image Control System (ICS), or Generic Image Control System (GENICS). This modular approach to development and commercialization was integral to Compugraphic's strategy. The "modular strategy" had been put in place to maximize compatibility of pre-print equipment from 1) different manufacturers, and 2) different generations of product from the same manufact urer. This strategy was to increase customer acceptance of CG products, entice customers to upgrade parts of their systems, and support diffusion of CG products into systems primarily made up of competitor and other manufacturer equipment. The modular approach was to support future CG output devices also.

The GENICS was practically a complete personal computer (without monitor), and required a microprocessor, operating system and other computer architectural and software support. Intel's 80386 microprocessor chip (new to the market and Compugraphic at the time) and the open-architecture UNIX Version 3 operating system were chosen as primary technological elements for the GENICS system. The GENICS module and other contemporary CG product specifications were driven by and planned with respect to existing and potential industry personal computer/communications technology standards (particularly those of IBM). Use of the 386

19

allowed cutting edge compatibility with IBM and clone products due to its 32 bit capability, and also allowed downward compatibility with older products. As of this time, however, few (if any) 386 based products had been ~ntroduced and IBM had not yet set a 32 bit communications standard. The UNIX operating system had become an important standard in the personal computer and workstation markets. It also provided "real-time capabilities making it suitable for ICS use."

The business plan, while recognizing the infancy of laser diode use, reaffirmed usage of the laser diode. It was needed to meet market interest in that technology, to stay ahead of the competition with proprietary and functionally advanced technology, and because it was cheaper than the helium-neon laser. In addition, Compugraphic anticipated substantial learning from laser diode use, and hypothesized future "laser diode arrays that will allow us to image several scan lines of data" at the same time. The business plan did state that "although we have yet to prove its feasibility in the lab, it appears, on paper [in theory], to offer promising results." Clearly, a major reason for this technology choice was that it might build a platform for future development of new products.

Six hardware and three software technologies were listed in the make vs. buy decision section. In this context, make means not only to manufacture in-house, but to develop in-house. In cases where industry standards were well developed, and where components were readily available, the decision generally was to ~. This applied to the UNIX operating system and hard disk controllers. In some cases where mechanisms were available, but deemed too costly, the decision was to make. This was the case with the optics assemblies. In cases where standards were not set already, and/or would be set too late, the decision was to ~.

This would give greater control over development time and outcome. An example of this was 386 chip support hardware. It was expected that in certain cases that the ~ decision might change to ~

in two or three years as standards further developed. Hence, CG anticipated unit cost reductions for future versions of the product. Finally, in some cases there was no choice for the ~

decision, as was the situation for writing engine software. This technology was intrinsic and unique to the new device. Also, as was the case for GENICS applications software, the decision was make so that future product capabilities could be added with little incremental development cost.

The business plan set the first customer ship date to December, 1987, with more formal domestic sales kick-off in January, 1988. The product itself was to be completely "specified" by design engineering by October, 1986. It also stated that advanced manufacturing engineering (AME) production units would go to rigorous final testing in October, 1987. The business plan also stated various quality and field service goals such as product mean-time-to-failure, mean-time-to-repair and

20

mean-time-to-install. The product tooling and production activities were to be transferred to the full volume manufacturing facility in the third quarter of 1988, giving the product about nine months in advanced manufacturing production at the headquarters site. See Exhibit 6 for timelines of planned and actual functional area involvements in the development program.

Engineering development and manufacturing startup costs were estimated over a five-year horizon. The report stated product pricing assumptions for the product and its many proposed options. Forecasted unit sales and revenues through 1990 were presented. The product launch (introduction) strategy and estimated resource requirements in terms of dollars and units of product were listed. Collateral sales and development strategies for type fonts and media were stated.

Three pages of detailed system level product specifications were included, as were two pages detailing the three different release versions of the product. These generally related to the GENICS package. Release 1.0 would be the first version made available on the market, and releases 2.0 and 3.0 would follow wi thin a year with software enhancement s and opt ions. See Appendix 2 for a more complete description of the GraphicSetter specifications.

The business plan stated that the engine would also be capable of writing at a resolution of 2400 OPI, in addition to 1200 OPI. This plan also mentioned that at this time there was still some slight hope of doubling the media output speed via use of a "double-faceted" polygon optic (this never carne about). The plan made no mention of color separation capability, a function that was later added because it was soon to be a "me too" capability in the marketplace. Color separat ion requires that four sheets of media be used rather than just one for black and white (each sheet corresponds to one primary color). In addition, it was anticipated that GraphicSetter, lower introduced by CG.

in a cost

year and

or co

two after mmodity

introduction of the versions would be

The options:

GraphicSetter was to be made available with these

text only

with halftone graphics via factory or field upgrade kit

structured graphics using PostScript or Interpress

other increased font and graphics capabilities

21

with a DC (direct connect) Proofer that allows plain paper proofing (saving media costs), this is accomplished via an interface board between the GENICS and the Writing Engine, which diverts the bit stream to a Canon plain paper laser printer.

Anticipated product line expansions included:

- the DC Proofer described above

a commercial plain paper typesetter, requires interface board as with the DC Proofer

the "8000 Laser", an interface from GENICS to the 8000 (previous product line) output device

a wide media version (108 pica vs. the traditional 78 pica) of the writing engine.

While not stated in the business plan, all involved with the planning of this project clearly understood that the schedules proposed were "aggressive", and therefore, potentially risky. The risk arises because little or no time is scheduled for dealing with problems that might arise during development activities. For example, if a major design change was deemed necessary due to knowledge gained from assembly of the design engineering prototypes, the aggressive schedule would have no time to allow these design changes to be made. In short, the aggressive schedule was understood to assume an ideal development situation.

3. ORGANIZATIONAL APPROACH

The general steps in the new product introduction (NPI) process for the 9400 were:

- product identification - product design concept development and feasibility tests - design specification setting (high and low level) - design reviews of product modules - design engineering prototype build - assembly and vendor tooling development - parts procurement for manufacturing - advanced manufacturing engineering prototype build - advanced manufacturing build - full volume manufacturing

Diverse testing activities occurred in parallel with some of these steps, and are outlined elsewhere in the paper. The summary chart below lists many major new product development activities and the

22

primary functions involved. For a listing of functional area responsibilities, see Exhibit 7.

===========================================~========================

NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES PRIMARY FUNCTIONS INVOLVED

1. concept development, feasibility Marketing testing, justification (business plan) Design Engineering

2. module breadboarding and design Design Engineering reviews, design to prototypes Advanced Mfg. Engg.

3. transfer to advanced manufacturing Advanced Mfg. Engg engineering, build and purchase tooling Manufacturing and fixtures, build AME prototypes

4. production of units in advanced Advanced Mfg. Engg manufacturing Manufacturing

5. transfer to and manufacture in the Manufacturing full volume manufacturing site

====================================================================

3.1 THE ROLE OF PROGRAM MANAGER

The program manager for the 9400/GENICS project was Pete Schacht. He was the project manager, and coordinated all the different divisions and functional groups in the company that had something to do with the product. While he acted as head for the entire product team, he had no direct authority over anyone. Nonetheless, he was the de facto team manager. He reported to the Vice President for Product Planning and was one of about ten program managers in the input and output devices product planning group. He controlled several products at any given time.

For this project, as was true for all projects, Schacht's objectives were to see that the:

1) desired functions were in the product 2) time targets were met 3) unit and development costs were reasonable.

His paramount responsibility was to facilitate communication between groups. He also spent much time one-on-one with group leaders. Schacht also attended many of the functional area meetings and presentations. He often acted as a negotiator and compromiser between parties. He communicated development progress and goals to team members via product development program meeting minutes and other memoranda. The program minutes had regularly updated Gantt charts showing development progress. Slips in the

23

timetable were clearly noted. Estimated unit product costs were highlighted and regularly updated in these minutes.

Schacht also communicated upward. After the approval of the business plan, regular review of the GraphicSetter development and commercialization shifted from the GPC to the New Product Planning Committee (NPPC). The NPPC group for the most part had the same members as the GPC (such as Carl Dantas and his staff), but its role was to monitor new product developments in progress rather than have the strategic focus the GPC had. Schacht gave bimonthly status reports on development progress to the NPPC. He would also pass on estimated unit costs and total development costs accumulated to that point, and did so via a special one-sheet cost summary update form. Comparisons would be made to target figures. He felt that it was very important to keep this group aware of costs in a real-time fashion. If the development cost, or the unit cost, were too high, the project could have been cancelled.

He originated what were at first infrequent, then finally weekly, Program Meetings that included members from all functional areas involved in the development and commercialization of the new product. These meetings were not started until he felt that they were needed, and he was not bound to conduct them due to any regulatory procedure for the new product development. Basically, the meetings were needed when the involvement of several functions was required. In the first stages of the project, only product planning and design engineering interaction was required. When the project was in the middle and latter stages of design, others needed to get involved and be kept up to date. He started program meetings for the 9400 in February, 1987. Also in February, 1987, Marketing decided that the GraphicSetter writing engine would be called the "9400". This name was chosen in particular to differentiate it from the higher-function 9600 and the CRT-based 8000 series.

3.2 THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT TEAM

The primary individuals involved in the project were the program manager, the design engineering development heads and the advanced manufacturing engineering heads. See brief biographical sketches in Exhibit 8. While the 9400 development had no specifically designated "new product team", these individuals may be thought of as the core team members. These people were:

Pete Schacht Program Manager

Richard Cashman Development head (left June-1986) Ron Goulet Development head (joined June-1986)

Joe Costanzo Production Control and Advanced Mfg head Dave Crespan Advanced Manufacturing Engineering head

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Many others were involved in the new product development effort. Approximately 150 people in CG had something to do with the product, with about 45 people holding critical positions along the way in the development. In no case is an individual dedicated to the 9400 project for the life of the project from concept to full volume manufacture. Even those who stayed with the project for most of the project duration (such as Pete Schacht) had responsibilities for other projects and activities. It is interesting to note that the initial program meetings had only about 12 attendees, while in the latter stages where many functions were involved had around 25 attendees.

Many different functional groups and subgroups had something to do with the 9400 development. Some of these functions sent representatives to the program meetings at various points in the development process. The collection of these representatives might be thought of as an organic, extended new product development team. A few functions (such as design engineering, advanced manufacturing engineering, customer/field service, accessories and supplies, reliability engineering and technical product support) had representatives all through the development. Other important functional groups that had some involvement with the product that never sent representatives to program meetings included the type division (responsible for the development and sales of fonts), documentation engineering (responsible for draft ing services and engineering change order management), component engineering, vendor engineering, purchasing, and front­end devices.

At the program meetings each functional area gave a short status report detailing progress made since the last meeting, and any problems that had arisen in the meantime. Typically, these informal reports were presented by one or two people from the function. For example, both Dave Crespan and Joe Costanzo would report for AME. These meetings also served informally as a means of oversight. Issues that might otherwise fall through the cracks due to no specific person being responsible for them would be acknowledged and dealt with. For example, these issues included such things as determining appropriate furniture to go with the 9400 system (required design engineering input on product weight and shape and marketing/customer service input on their desires) and taking care of Department of Commerce paperwork to see that shipments to eastern block nat ions would be allowed (required technical information from design engineering and administrative support from international marketing) .

The primary functional area groups other than Design Engineering, AME, and Production Planning & Control that had involvement in the program meetings included:

Customer Service Diyision (CSD): This group dealt directly with the customer and was concerned with whether the product was installable and maintainable, developed user documentation and

25

manuals, supported product demonstrations at trade shows, and was concerned with system aspects of the product (such as whether the chemicals and media were available when the product was to be released). Field Service ~as a subgroup of CSD. They also dealt with service technician training and manuals, and had product development oversight for design for serviceability. For the 9400, two field service people were involved in the design stages of the product to guarantee serviceability.

Reliability Engineering: This group was responsible for measuring and approving the long term reliability of the product. They would operate the product for long durations to find mean-times­to-failure, and would subject the product to various tests to determine whether it could withstand shipping and environmental changes. While they have no design responsibility, they could point to system level issues requiring resolution.

Technical Product Support (TPS): This group acted as an in-house beta test. They would use the product in an integrated electronic pre-press fashion as a customer would by trying it with many software applications and front-end devices. While these people had strong technical skills, their role was to find system problems, not causes.

Accessories and Supplies Division (ASD): This group worked to see that required media (paper and film), processing chemicals, and other product supplies were available and of appropriate quality. They kept in close contact with Agfa in Belgium to make sure that appropriate supplies were either available or being developed (an engineer from Agfa-Belgium stayed at CG throughout the GraphicSetter development). They also worked with Kodak, Fuji and others as needed and started doing so in the concept stage itself.

Domestic Marketing and International Marketing also sent representatives regularly to program meetings. They were both concerned with product launch (commercialization) dates and activities, readiness for trade shows, and product literature. The international group was also concerned with international beta sites, translation of documentation, overseas demonstration and distribution issues, international ergonomic and other regulations, and oversight of the user interface for international applications.

Quality Engineering: This group was concerned with a variety of issues such as the quality of the product's physical output, and the product's consistency of output under diverse application uses. They performed various analyses on media output.

Conformance Engineering: This group checks to see whether the product requires some regulatory conformance (such as meeting certain FCC or Underwriters' Laboratory standards). If it does, this group then makes sure that the product does indeed meet the rules and that appropriate documentation is filed and maintained.

26

For the 9400, they guaranteed conformance in accordance with the rules of at least seven agencies.

Manufacturing: The plant manager and occasionally others from the full volume manufacturing facility would attend program meetings. They did this rarely--for the most part only when the product was being "transitioned" to the full volume manufacturing site.

Reliability Engineering, Component Engineering, Documentation Engineering and Compliance functions all belong to one group called Engineering Services. Engineering Services in turn reports to design engineering.

Most of the functional groups listed above are located in CG headquarters in Wilmington, MA. This location is often referred to as "Ballardvale" or "200". The full volume manufacturing site is also located in Wilmington, and is about eight miles from the headquarters. This site is usually referred to as "80" or "Unit 80". Printed circuit boards and other electrical items are assembled in a plant in Haverhill, MA, located 22 miles from the headquarters. There are other sites for job shop manufacturing, field service technician training, and sales training also in Wilmington.

3.3 THE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULE AND PROCESS

The 9400 development timeline was not "event driven" as in the case of the 9600 which was to be introduced at the bi-decanal international DRUPA '85 trade show in Germany. In event-driven cases, the schedules are simply worked backwards from the event date. In non-event-driven cases, marketing would state their product function and cost goals, then design engineering would show what they believe to be a feasible development schedule. Design engineering can make this estimate when they complete feasibility tests in their labs. Engineering then commits to a release date to advanced manufacturing engineering, and then AME states how long they expect to take for ramping up.

Design engineering (DE) considers the amount of time required to determine and write product specifications, fully test the feasibility of product modules, and to prepare DE prototypes. Dick Cashman and Dave Larsen worked with Jeff Elliot on this issue. Similarly, AME states their proposed build schedule first considering: 1) how long it will take to develop and implement all required tooling, and 2) the time to acquire all necessary parts. Joe Costanzo and Diane Barrett (a production control manager) from AME interacted with Jeff Elliot for the timing decisions. These activities occurred in mid-1986. The program manager determines a launch date considering all these things. In short, the program manager keeps in mind these two important projected milestones for consideration of product launch:

27

1. date of engineering commitment to release to AME 2. how long AME will take to ramp up

The program managers generally like· to take advantage of regular annual sales force kick-off meetings. These meetings are significant events, and many products are planned for January launch .. It helps the salespeople, design engineers, manufacturing engineers and customer service support people focus on a date for project completion. It is, in a sense, an artificial event driver.

In the, case of the 9400, much of the detailed development schedule had already been constructed by the time of the business plan approval. While these detailed schedules were available at that time, the target dates stated formally in the business plan were only for release of product to testing and first customer ship. Schacht used these end target dates as goals to guide him in his time management activities.

Program managers at Compugraphic were not required to use a formal company-approved format for the new product development process at the time of the 9400. However, they had been required to follow a rigid procedure for earlier projects. The procedure was called the Product Life Cycle, and was a complex and thorough documentation procedure that attempted to make sure that all those who should be involved in the development project were.

The complete procedure with its many associated forms and documents was an attempt to formalize the new product introduction process. It required numerous sign-offs by individuals responsible for various functional activities. All stages and relevant functional groups were defined, and formal sign-offs and checklists were provided. Pete Schacht said that this approach was "too regimented", and not flexible enough to meet the needs of individual development projects. For the 9400, he only followed the Product Life Cycle (PLC) format informally. He stated that in the past he had to "fight it a lot" and that it actually slowed work because people would have to "work around it." Certain functional groups (such as design engineering and advanced manufacturing engineering, among others) also used the PLC structuring of stages, milestones and sign-offs for control and comparison purposes with varying degrees of formality.

See Exhibit 9 for the Gantt charts of the program development as it was conceived and as it actually happened. Exhibit 10 and 11 contain respectively summary timeline charts of initial concept/feasibility activities and activities after business plan approval.

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Changes To The New Product Deyelopment Process

The new product introduction process for the 9400 was quite different from the NPI process for the 8000- and 9600 (predecessor products) . There was a move away from sequential design for a number of reasons, including: the Integrator experience, Agfa pressure for short lead times, and general increasing awareness of design for manufacture (DFM).

Integrator. This early and mid 1980's product was a failure of sorts because 200 units had to be fixed overseas, and other problems showed up in the field. The organization has quite a bit of lore on this product, and it has the nickname "dis-Integrator". Engineers joke that no one who worked on the project is around any more. This was a milestone failure in terms of design and manufacture. However, after changing the design, the product became highly reliable and was a tremendous market success.

The VP-Manufacturing ordered a post-mortem on that product. This was CG' s first such formal post-mortem. The Integrator experience brought about awareness of walls between functions (and even within functions, such as hardware and software engineering) and the need for design for manufacture.

Increased Awareness of DFM: In addition to pressure from Agfa and experience from prior product developments, CG personnel before starting the 9400 development gradually gained more knowledge on design for manufacture and simultaneous engineering by attending industry seminars on the subjects, reading articles in practitioner journals, and finding that other companies were using these types of principles.

4. THE PRODUCT DESIGN/DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

4.1 DESIGN ENGINEERING ORGANIZATION

Design Engineering Team

The bulk of the design engineering team for the 9400 development came as a multi-discipline engineering group that had previously worked on an output device called the 8000. A few individuals came from the Scanner2000 development project. So, engineers were not hand picked and assembled with the specific purpose of working on the 9400 development. This was not necessary because the existing team unit already had structure in terms of having critical engineering capabilities in place and generally appropriate numbers of engineers for each specific discipline (mechanical, electrical, optical). Since most of these design engineers had worked together on several projects, had

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offices close together and shared common labs, there was great existing rapport in the group.

No specific new hires were made to augment this group, but occasionally specialists from outside the group were brought in to deal with specific issues. For example, the lens designer who worked on the 9400 development worked on other projects also. Similarly, a leading system designer for the 9600 worked with the 9400 development group for two or three months when problems arose with that module. Consultants were hired on occasion. Also, there were promotions, retirements and lateral movements (due to section reorganization) in the team during the development.

There were a few individuals available early on for product identification and preliminary conceptual development, but the development gained most of the design team around January, 1986, as they completed individual duties with the previous development projects.

A few of the design engineers had experience with lasers in general from working on the Scanner2000 project which used a ReNe laser, but none had worked with laser diodes before. Also, the design team had no previous experience with the 9600 product development, even though the 9600 had a similar design concept and several very similar modules. The 9400 development team planned to reduce total development effort by borrowing modules from the 9600, and expected to borrow from the other group's accumulated insights. There was a rapport between the groups. The 9600 developers worked on the same floor as the 9400 developers, and had a similar set of design skills. The 9600 development group did not work to build the 9400 because they had already moved on to develop the 9700, a wide-media version of the 9600. In addition, they were supporting the 9600 which was in manufacturing at that time by providing design refinements and enhancements.

As stated earlier, the first team head was Dick Cashman who was promoted to BCE in June, 1986. Ron Goulet took over as team head. Cashman had three engineering section managers reporting to him: electrical, opto-mechanical and software. See Exhibit 12 for an organization chart of the design engineering group. After Cashman was promoted, the software group reported directly to Al St. Pierre, a Business Chief Engineer for Input Devices (which is very software oriented). They also reported in a dotted-line fashion to Goulet. Also at this time, the electrical engineering section was divided into two groups, one that would be dedicated to the writing engine development and one that would be dedicated to the interpreter development.

Each engineering section had as its head a senior engineer with supervisory experience. Each section also had a few senior engineers and a coterie of junior engineers. A number of "techs" (technicians) resident in design engineering helped respective sections conduct tests, collect data, assemble breadboards, draw and maintain parts sketches and blueprints, and so forth.

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The design engineers all worked at CGls headquarters. They worked with manufacturing engineers also at headquarters, and with electrical engineers at Haverhill.

Team Meetings

Monthly meetings were held where everyone in the development project from senior engineers to technicians would get together to disseminate information on project progress and critical issues. These meetings were chaired by the development head. The development head also held approximately bi-monthly meetings with the senior-most engineers (primarily the section heads). These meetings were opportunities for managers to "lay the cards on the table" and discuss progress and problems. It was also a forum for thinking about future projects and department-wide issues.

Most of the section heads did not hold formal meetings with their groups--this was not necessary due to the existence of close working arrangements and easy transfer of information. A few engineers did set up ad-hoc meetings to deal with very specific issues. Specialized discipline-related meetings were common. For example, Mark Barrett, the electrical engineering section head, would meet regularly once a week with electrical engineers from the Haverhill facility. Regardless of formal planned meetings, by far the bulk of information was transferred informally due to the close, continuous working relationships required in the development effort.

By March, 1987, Dave Larsen (opto-mechanical section head) started conducting weekly "GraphicSetter Issues Meetings" for about eight section heads/senior design engineers and an equal number of representatives from other functions such as purchasing, production control (PC), AME, component engineering, reliability engineering, drafting and quality engineering. These meetings were held to focus on technical and administrative issues relating to manufacturing such as parts procurement, documentation, quality, assembly processes, and part cost reduction.

4.2 ACTIVITIES AFTER BUSINESS PLAN

Two weeks after the business plan was approved, Dave Larsen issued a Gantt chart detailing the planned start, planned end, and progress-to-date on twenty "task" milestones in the development. These ranged from the detailed schedule determination, to specifications, module design and review, breadboards, parts lists details, prototype and demo units, reliability and compliance testing, AME build and first customer shipment (FCS). Gantt charts such as these were frequently revised and widely disseminated so that all involved in the design side of the development understood the requirements of the entire program.

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Preliminary versions of such Gantt charts had been in use as early as December, 1985.

Specification Reports

In September and October, 1986, system level specification ("spec") reports were released. Unlike the concept report which related design philosophy, history and alternatives, these reports detailed in a strict manner exact system level technical specifications. The "GraphicSetter System Product Specification" was written by Ron Goulet and listed detailed technical capabilities the product would achieve. It also described how the ICS and writing engine would interact. This specification report was signed by Goulet, Elliot (the senior product planning manager), and representatives of domestic and international marketing, and was the only specification report to have sign-offs by individuals external to design engineering. This report followed a standard format for spec reports starting with an abstract, followed by a list of reference documents, a presentation of system constraints, and then a detailed explanation of requirements for product function, interfaces, performance, reliability, diagnostics, maintenance, physical nature, and international needs. Cost, weight and size constraints were clearly stated. Detailed block diagrams of the system functions were presented.

These spec reports often cited more than 20 reference documents. Such documents included government standards, vendor part specifications, existing CG-internal environmental and manufacturability standards, and other system level and subsidiary specification reports. Some of these other specification reports were released in parallel with this report. In some cases the other reports had not been written yet but would be released within the next two months.

Other system level specification documents released in September and October were the Opto-Mechanical report and the Electrical Unit specification. Both of these reports were written by the respective engineering section heads, and had been revised over the previous two months. A similar specification for the GENICS unit was also released in October.

In November and December, 1986, dozens of module and sub­module level specification reports were released. There was a systematic top-down hierarchy to the reports, with system level reports released first to be followed by module and subsequently submodule reports. These module reports were written by individual design engineers who had the responsibility for the given module. Like the system level reports, these aimed to fully document the module. They described inputs to the module, output from it, and required processing actions within. Again, detailed block diagrams describing module functions were presented. These specifications were written in parallel with design of the module,

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and were often released before the module was completed in the lab. For example, the specification for a particular printed circuit board (an electrical module) was often completed after schematics were developea but before a preliminary prototype board was actually manufactured and tested.

The specification activity for the GraphicSetter development was rigorous since the development group followed the PLC process. Hence, this product was very heavily documented. The specification reports had a primary role as documents to be passed on to AME, field service, test engineers and others who would in turn develop their own subsidiary and modified documents for the modules. For example, manufacturing engineers would develop a document called "Test Engineering Procedure" (TEP) which clearly explained to assemblers how to test and adjust a particular module. In some cases, specification report deadlines served as motivators to complete required work.

The specification reports did not serve as final descriptions of the product. Often, changes were made to the modules that were not updated in the specification reports. These documentation updates were deemed unnecessary since parties requiring information on the changes learned about the modifications generally as they were happening, or at design reviews to be held in the coming months.

Cross-Functional Actiyity

In October, 1986, design engineering completed work with representatives of CSD (field service in particular) to develop a "Diagnostic/Maintainability Test Plan" for the product. They also developed reliability and diagnostic requirements that were listed in specification reports. Also in October, engineers from design and advanced manufacturing worked closely to estimate initial unit costs of the product. Individuals from AME tended to have a better sense of purchased and manufactured part costs.

Breadboard Designs

For the most part in parallel with specification development and writing was engineering design and assembly of breadboards (October to December, 1986). These breadboards were more sophisticated than the ones developed during the concept activities, but were still preliminary items. The objective of this level of breadboarding activity was to prove that the entire module (or submodule) would work, and to gain a sense of detailed inputs, outputs and required internal processing. The process was supported by extensive CAD use. Many off-the-shelf parts were used and again elements were sometimes borrowed from earlier products. Experience was gained, but often the modules could not be directly borrowed for the final product design since so many substitute parts were used. The breadboard stage could have been a place where major design problems are found, but for the

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GraphicSetter, no major problems were found via the breadboard efforts.

Demonstration Units

In December, a first "Milestone Demo" was performed, with a second following in January, 1987. The demos were "system-level kluges", that is, rough assemblies of all the major modules into a single system unit. These were put together to prove that the system as a whole would work. The development of these demos served as a good interim deadline since it forced certain design issues to b~ resolved. A major objective of the demo work was to produce actual physical copy, which they did. The success of the demos was used to show design engineering, marketing, AME and the vice-presidents that the product will probably work when the final design work was completed. While the engineers considered this a valuable activity, some were careful not to spend too much time just putting together a demo that would be immediately torn-down. The intent was to learn, but not to put an excessive amount of effort into presentation.

Two major problem areas were found as a result of demo activity. The encoder did not work as planned, and this element had to be modified. A design change was made by the end of January. In addition, the demo unit s showed "banding" , a phenomenon of excessively (or intermittently) light or dark streaks (bands) of writing on the media. Banding is a symptom--a great number of sources can cause it. For this reason, it can be very difficult to determine the source of banding problems, as was the case here.

The OSM analytical software developed by Rombult was put to use, and by May, 1987, with its support the design engineers determined and resolved the banding problem. It was caused by the polygonal optic which turned out to work well for writing in the center of a sheet of media, but quite poorly on the edges. The polygon did not compensate enough for motor wobble. The engineers determined that a different optical approach would be required, and were under time pressure to find a suitable alternative. They had earlier debated whether a polygon or prism should be used, and so now further studied prism alternatives. They found another company's product which used a prism optic successfully. While this prism application had a patent, it was used for an application quite different from the GraphicSetter. Regardless, the patent was to expire before the GraphicSetter would be released to the market.

Again, in an effort to save time, the new optical prism was retrofitted into the existing scanner assembly design. This was to cut otherwise extensive redesign time for the beam scan module (and perhaps even the product as a whole) that would in turn cause advanced manufacturing ramp-up activities to be delayed.

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Design Reyiews

From January to March, 1987, design reviews were conducted for every module and submodule. The lead-design engineer for a module presented the design approach for it to a diverse audience. They usually communicated the purpose of the module, a block diagram of the module, and its major inputs and outputs. This was a presentation of the actual design and was based on working laboratory models (advanced breadboards). The actual design went much farther than the specifications in that specs were simply constraints or objectives that the designers had to meet through some design.

Typically, these reviews were attended by design engineers in the GraphicSetter team and design engineers from other development teams (such as the 9700), along with members from advanced manufacturing engineering, field service, conformance, and reliability. While many of the design reviews were informal, the objective was to have the lead designer defend his approach and benefit from external criticism of it. Many of the reviews lasted two to three hours, with design engineers from other projects having expertise in a particular area sometimes providing a fresh perspective and oversight review.

This was the first major immersion of advanced manufacturing engineering in the development process. Manufacturing engineers at tended all des ign reviews and were act i ve in critiquing the designs from a manufacturing point of view. Their first objective was to point out what they considered to be glaring errors in design for manufacturability (such as having an assembly that would be very difficult to put together). Then they would point to general recommendations for improved manufacturability (such as requesting additional test points on a printed circuit board). Finally, they would outline potential cost reduction areas (such as recommending that a steel part be replaced by one made of aluminum) .

This was also an opportunity for manufacturing engineering to learn about the modules in a detailed fashion, which would lead to better determination of tooling needs, level of assembly skills required, safety issues and product tolerances. The manufacturing engineers hoped to get 3D module sketches or schematics, data on shock and vibration requirements, information on storage and environmental requirements, and most importantly, parts lists for the module. While some of the design reviews had documents associated with them, few had complete and official parts lists ready at that time.

Each design review was conducted a little bit differently since each is administered by different lead engineers. A few design engineers preferred to have a lot of documentation, while others preferred little. Section managers were responsible for

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seeing that all appropriate design reviews in their section were held. Over forty design reviews were held.

There were some problems with the design reviews themselves. In some cases only three or four people in the company had the appropriate level of knowledge to provide substantive critiques. And since designers external to the product with particular expertise were very busy with their own development work, they often did not prepare enough to give a thorough critique. Also, since the module designs were presented after they were completed, their was little room for anything other than incremental changes in the respective designs. Alternatively, "klugey" changes would have to be made, with resulting poor quality implications. To overcome this problem, a dual design review approach was instituted for the first time with the GraphicSetter development. In some cases, a Preliminary Design Review was held where the designer would describe what approach was being taken. This would bring external people "up to speed" on the module, and helped generate feedback regarding major apparent errors in design. This preliminary review approach was thought to have saved time since suggested changes could be incorporated in the design easily, and because these changes would reduce the number of downstream problems. Six to eight weeks after a preliminary review, a more traditional Final Design Review was held.

In March, Mark Barrett found a problem with the printed circuit board which interfaced with the write laser. It was found that the laser diode heated up when it was on for a while, and so would consume more power than expected. This required changes in the printed circuit boards and power supply electronics. Design engineers from outside the project joined temporarily to assist in resolution of the problem, which took about two months to rectify. This problem was thought to have arisen due to incomplete knowledge about the laser diode, and was what the design engineers called "doing research while we're doing development."

Parts Lists

Several versions of parts lists were released by DE. In several cases, manufacturing engineers asked for (or put together by themselves) informal lists of parts for the various modules. This knowledge helps in decision making for tooling design and other manufacturing-related activities. The first level of somewhat rigorous parts sketches, description and documentation was called "X-ln. All parts lists and drawings that were X-l were considered internal to design engineering and subject to change. Nonetheless, these lists were made available to advanced manufacturing engineering and production control so that they had earlier knowledge of parts requirements. When DE had committed to a drawing, they would review and co-sign the drawing with AME. This would put the part on the "X-2" parts list. Once on the X-2 list, internal controls were placed on the parts drawings. Design engineering could not make a change to the part unless they

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completed the required engineering change order documentation and protocols. Most of the parts had been released as X-2 by the end of March, 1987. Production Control used these lists to acquire parts for the advanced manufacturing engineering build (AME prototypes) of fifteen units that was supposed to start in July, 1987.

Also in March, DE and AME together started conducting rigorous reviews (called Producibility Reviews) of each mechanical piece part to determine tolerance requirements, cost reduction opportunities and other manufacturability issues. However, the stackup of tolerances was not studied.

In March and April, parts for the DE prototypes were acquired and inspected. Certain items had to be made in various CG job shops, which were overloaded at that time causing design engineers to prioritize the order of parts to be made in the shops.

In April, 1987, design engineering released the "LANR" document (long lead-time advanced notice of parts release). This document listed the limited number of parts with very long acquisition lead times. Such items included optical elements and castings that typically required significant vendor setup to produce. The list was used by vendor engineering and purchasing to start procurement activities so that the parts would be available in reasonable volumes for advanced manufacturing production (scheduled to start in September, 1987). A preliminary version of the LANR list was made available in February itself.

Design Engineering Prototypes

Starting in May, the design engineers assembled DE prototypes of each module and the system as a whole. No major new problems were found at this stage. The first prototype unit took about three weeks to put assemble. There was a great deal of learning here, and many parts had some problems that needed to be resolved. The remaining prototypes were assembled much more quickly. Four units were completed by June 30, one of which was given to reliability engineering so that they could perform module and system level tests. Design engineers also tested the modules and systems extensively, and used software modeling tools to aid in analysis. There was some AME involvement at this point. Bob Gillin from AME assisted throughout the design engineering prototype activities. Jim Waterman, an AME technician, joined in June to assist in the prototype assembly and to learn more about the assembly process.

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5. THE MANUFACTURING DESIGN/DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

5.1 THE OPERATIONS ORGANIZATION

The primary leaders of advanced manufacturing activities were Joe Costanzo and Dave Crespan, both of whom reported directly to Dick Renwick, the Senior Vice President for Operations. Costanzo I s role was the administrative side of the new product introduction, and included tasks such as materials procurement, coordination between Engineering and Manufacturing, management of the advanced manufacturing shop floor and transition of the product to full scale outplant manufacturing. The production control manager, Diane Barrett, reported to Costanzo and was in charge of materials procurement, inventory planning and MRP­related concerns for all products at any stage of manufacture. She had several people reporting to her, one of whom was dedicated to the 9400 development project. Elaine Therriault, the advanced manufacturing (shop floor) plant manager, also reported to Costanzo. She managed several products in production at anyone time, and led many supervisors, shop floor workers, and others (see Exhibits 13 and 14 for organization charts of the Operations function) .

On the other hand, Dave Crespan administered development of the assembly process. This included all advanced manufacturing engineering technical issues including determination, scheduling, acquisition and development of assembly and vendor tooling. He also administered capital justifications, personnel selection, resource allocations, plant floor layout activities and general planning. A manufacturing engineering head who managed all technical assembly ramp-up activities reported to Crespan. Also reporting to Crespan was John Kennedy, the vendor engineering head. He was involved in selection of vendors (and appropriate manufacturing processes) for custom piece-parts. Kennedy had several vendor engineers reporting to him. One was dedicated to the 9400 project, while another vendor engineer worked for the 9400 part-time. The packaging engineering and continuing engineering functions reported to Kennedy.

The first manufacturing engineering head was Bob Gillin. He was also the first manufacturing engineer to become involved in the 9400 development in a substantial manner. He was dedicated to the project from December, 1986, on. Bill Ceccherini, a test engineer, also joined the project early (about January, 1987) and was generally in charge of all test aspects of the electrical side of the 9400 product. The manufacturing engineering group subsequently underwent reorganization and Ceccherini became the manufacturing engineering head for the 9400, GENICS, and all other development projects in July, 1987. Gillin, Ceccherini, and Jim Waterman (starting in June, 1987), were manufacturing engineers actively involved in design engineering activities.

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Many of the manufacturing engineers had experience with the 9600 product ramp-up. However, unlike design engineering, manufacturing engineers did not stay as a team from project to project. Rather, each test or manufacturing engineer belonged to a functional specialty group such as testing engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, software engineering or others. Individuals were selected from these functional area groups as needed to work on a project. They then became dedicated to that project as long as they were needed. Hence, the manufacturing ramp-up team was really a portfolio of engineers with the appropriate skills. All of the manufacturing engineers had worked with each other on previous projects, and all had offices near each other in one wing of the same floor--they knew each other well.

The manufacturing/test engineers were taken into the 9400 ramp-up group as they become available from other projects in progress. Most of the manufacturing/test engineers came on line in the first quarter of 1987 as they completed debugging activities with the 9600 product in advanced manufacture at that time.

No new permanent hires were made to augment the manufacturing engineering group for the 9400 development. However, several consultants were hired. One was an optical consultant and several were tool designers. All became team members for the duration of the project. A number of resident manufacturing engineering technicians were dedicated to the 9400 project. In the later stages of advanced manufacturing ramp-up, approximately ten manufacturing/test engineers and five technicians reported to Ceccherini. Several people from Unit 80 also joined the technical group. Other movements in and out of the team occurred (for example, there was one resignation) .

Unlike the specially composed and then dedicated manufacturing engineering group, many of the manufacturing service groups such as vendor engineering, packaging engineering, AME drafting, engineering change documentation, and production planning & control served all products. However, since this was a major project, in certain cases (as described above for vendor engineering and production control) particular service groups would dedicate an individual full-time to the 9400 development.

The advanced manufacturing engineering group held a regular weekly meeting to determine the status of the project, list problems, and assign individuals to explore and resolve particular issues. The manufacturing engineers used this venue to continually evaluate the "confidence" they had in completing particular activities and receiving parts/tools from external sources in target time-frames. A number of other regular meetings were held for specific purposes, and are described below as appropriate. Memos servings as minutes from certain meetings were widely disseminated even to non-attendees, and were effective means of communication for AME work on the product. As in design

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engineering, regularly updated Gantt charts were used for planning, control and communication of AME activities and progress. AME individuals also attended meetings and presentations in design engineering, Haverhill and Unit 80 on occasion.

In contrast to the design engineering side, AME used CAD very little to support their activities with the 9400 development. The only users of CAD were those involved in packaging design. All other drawings and layouts were designed by hand, and so there was a substantial amount of paper documentation for the 9400.

Locations

Much of the tooling development, assembly and calibration took place in the AME labs which were a floor above the advanced manufacturing shop floor. The AME labs were right next to manufacturing engineers' offices and was a calmer, more scientific environment in which to conduct development activities. On the other hand, the AM floor had a lot more space. Generally, after a given tool was debugged, calibrated and documented, it was moved to the AM floor. The AM floor was used to assemble three separate sets of AME prototypes, sometimes collectively referred to as "AME Build." After the assembly of prototypes, the AM floor was used to build modules and full units for CG-internal uses and for revenue. This was referred to as "AM Build." In time, the assembly tools and shop floor personnel would get transferred to the full volume manufacturing site called Unit 80.

Major Actiyities

The general activities for the advanced manufacturing engineering stage included:

1) Understanding the product, and developing a macro­level assembly process flow

2) Determining the tooling requirements to support the assembly process

3) Developing economic justifications for capital

4) Designing, ordering, assembling, calibrating and documenting the tooling

5) Determining labor/time standards and labor technical skill requirements for assembly operations

6) Materials (parts) acquisition, planning and control.

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5.2 TOOLING DEVELOPMENT

Bob Gillin was the first manufacturing engineer assigned to the 9400 development. He started in December, 1986, by observing the assembly of the design engineering Demo Units I and I I. Gillin held discussions with design engineers, and attended some

. of their design meetings. He aimed to get an understanding of the product and areas that would be critical to quality manufacture of it. Since the 9400 had many similarities with the 9600, which Gillin had experience with, he already had a basic idea of the 9400 process flow and tooling requirements. He and the design engineers knew that the critical manufacturing issue had to do with just how the laser diodes and optics would be put in place and aligned. These elements had to be within millionths of an inch of the design-specified location if the product was to write well on the media. The design engineers themselves at this point had not made final decisions on the "alignment philosophy", and held meetings that Gillin was active in to flesh this out.

Assembly Tooling

By the end of January, 1987, Gillin gained an understanding of the whole product and drew a rough process flow for its assembly. He determined three very critical fixtures for the product--they had to do with the alignment of the BGM and BSM. He also developed a rough preliminary list of all tools and fixtures that would be required. With the process flow and fixtures list in hand he identified the resource requirements necessary to develop the assembly process. He estimated the tool designer time required per fixture, and aggregated this to determine the number of tool designers needed. For the most part, contract (consulting) tool designers would be hired, although a few of the

AME techs would also engage in fixture design tasks. Gillin would also determine the numbers of electrical engineers and mechanical engineers required from AME to help develop the individual fixtures. As with tool designers, he would aggregate the engineering requirements. Gillin also estimated material and other peripheral development costs per tool.

Bill Ceccherini assessed software engineering resource requirements for the assembly fixtures. One alignment tool was to be fully computer-assisted. This would reduce subjectivity on the part of the shop floor personnel, would reduce task cycle time and improve alignment accuracy (and so the product quality). However, adding this capability would take more development time and effort. In addition, this was CG' s first effort at computer­supported alignment.

Ceccherini also considered the level of statistical process control support he wished the various fixtures to provide. CG employed SPC for the first time with the 9400, previously only using acceptance sampling methods. Ceccherini's early consideration of the role of SPC was important because this

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impacted the tooling development process. Certain fixtures were then designed to conveniently provide process data for collection and analysis (later in the ramp-up AME collected six months of data on certain critical process parameters). Such convenient SPC analysis capabilities would not have been achieved without early planning.

The aggregate resource requirements plan compiled by Bob Gillin was based on the "drop dead" date for the product. With the AME and AM build goal dates in mind, Gillin prioritized fixture development in order of long lead time and critical fixtures. To some degree, more work could be done in less time with more people. In addition, he had to consider whether enough information was available from design engineering to start the development of a particular fixture. Sometimes, fixtures he and other manufacturing engineers wanted to start early could not be started due to lack of detailed information.

Gillin also estimated the assembly task times at the fixtures. To maintain a reasonable balance of assembly (CG did not like to run multiple shifts at bottleneck stations), he would plan for duplicate and triplicate tools/fixtures for longer task time items. This was often the case for testing and burn-in tools. Alternatively, or in addition, he would work with design and manufacturing engineers to cut the task time associated with that tool. He then developed a backwards schedule based on the fixture due dates, the complexity of the fixture and the estimated fixture development lead times to determine start dates for each fixture. The schedule showed many overlapping planned individual tool/fixture developments over about six months. AME understood fixture development to be a repeating process.

By the end of the 9400 ramp-up, the assembly process would have about 20 fixtures and a similar number of tools. "Fixtures" generally referred to reasonably complicated items used in alignment, adjustment or testing of parts, modules or the system as a whole. Fixtures were often machines unto themselves, having power supplies, mechanics, electronics and sometimes software. Each fixture development could be thought of as a mini-new product development in itself. Some of these fixtures cost tens of thousands of dollars. Most had development lead times from 1.5 to 5 months. On the other hand, "tools" referred to simpler devices that supported some assembly task. Tools included items such as torque screwdrivers, adhesive guns, component trays and boxes, rolling tables, clamps and so on. A number of tools required design work and were custom made or specially ordered. Nonetheless, they were much less complicated than fixtures and had lead times of approximately one month. Typically, CG employees did not distinguish between the terms "fixture" and "tool", using them interchangeably. To add to any confusion in terminology, "tool designers" would design "fixtures".

Two kinds of fixtures/tools existed for the assembly process. Most were assembly related, but some had to do with (typically

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sampling) inspection of purchased materials and assemblies. These were called Purchased Materials Inspection (PMI) tools, and required (sometimes significant) development efforts also. PMI tool development usually required close - interaction with the materials vendors.

The aggregate resources plan was discussed and modified through several iterations by Gillin and Crespan. Crespan made sure to consider the estimated material cost and tool designer fees per tool. They buffered the costs a little to account for the unexpected revisions and extra costs that always seemed to occur. Crespan then reported and defended the resource needs before Dick Renwick. Renwick approved funding for the manufacturing ramp-up activities in February, 1987.

Crespan set up "E-numbers" for each fixture and tool. An E­number was a budget line item for the fixture/tool. To set one up, Crespan completed a small economic justification form for each item listing the materials, labor, consulting and other costs associated with it, and the objectives that item would achieve. When costs were actually incurred, they would be "charged" against the E-number. Such charges included tool designer time, materials, miscellaneous supplies, purchase prices for assemblies, and direct labor. The E-number served as a mechanism for accumulating costs. Costs that were considered to be "capital­oriented" were then capitalized and depreciated, while other (usually much lower) costs were "expensed".

So, by late January, 1987, E-numbers had been setup for a few critical fixtures, and their development commenced. Through March, manufacturing engineers were active in the design engineering design reviews of product modules and submodules, and gained greater insight into the assembly and other manufacturing requirements of the product. They had a better sense of the precedence relationships for assembly steps, and where inspection and test ing efforts might be required. They also had a much better sense of safety requirements (as with control of the lasers during assembly). The preliminary process flow prepared by Gillin was revised with particular consideration of greater knowledge of each module, and so was updated in a module by module fashion rather than at a system level. Also, the manufacturing engineers were better able to assess the need for a given fixture or tool, and its level of complexity. There were no surprises in terms of the need for major fixtures; however, the need for a number of tools such as jigs and clamps was recognized. Gillin updated the process flow and tooling/fixtures resources plan approximately bi­monthly to aid planning and control efforts by Crespan and himself. These plan revisions were not communicated to Renwick since they did not require his approval.

Dave Crespan went to John Kennedy to contact Contract Houses to retain the necessary tool designer consultants. This had historically been Kennedy's responsibility. He asked for and reviewed resumes, arranged interviews with the tool designers and

43

disseminated blueprint drawings prepared by these individuals for informal critique. The manufacturing engineers chose those they thought were the best tool designers. AME made special efforts to bring back those that they had worked with- in the past that were especially good. None were permanent employees of the company because CG simply did not need full-time tool designers. The tool designer consultants that were hired for all practical purposes became team members.

Approximately ten of the fixtures were critical and complex enough to require interaction of a number of people and so merited fixture meetings for decision making, planning, coordination and review. Al Mott, a manufacturing engineer in charge of several major fixtures, organized weekly or biweekly meetings as needed dedicated to individual fixtures. These meetings started in February and continued through 1987. Only those that had to be involved were expected to attend. Similarly, Bill Ceccherini organized weekly meetings of (only) AME manufacturing engineers regarding fixture software development. For certain important fixtures (such as those involving the BSM and BGM) , up to ten or fifteen engineers would attend. Often, these fixture meetings had as many design engineers present as manufacturing engineers/tool designers. Each fixture had a "concept" that was agreed upon by the group. The concept was essentially the design approach and listing of the objectives the fixture would achieve. The tool designer would then prepare the part, system and assembly drawings for the fixture. The designer also determined piece-part tolerances and drew up a parts list. Typically a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, and Bob Gillin (all three from manufacturing engineering) would then closely review the fixture drawings. These were called fixture design reviews. If the drawings were deemed all right, vendors would be contacted to produce required custom piece-parts.

While AME did practically all of the assembly fixture design, calibration and testing, they did very little actual manufacturing. Vendors fabricated and sometimes assembled the custom piece-parts that were required. CG never tried to have vendors do the fixture designs themselves because it would have been very difficult to communicate exact fixture needs. Almost all of CG' s vendors for assembly tooling parts were within 15 miles of Ballardvale (this included CG' s job shops, which were considered vendors). CG had long-standing relationships with most of these vendors. Interestingly, AME, from its experience with these (machine shop format) vendors, knew that while they were generally quite capable of handling metal, they had little experience with electronics and optics and were likely to damage these types of parts. For this reason, CG manufacturing engineers acquired and held on to these items and assembled them into the fixtures themselves when parts and assemblies came in from the vendors.

Fixture design activities continued for the most part through early April, 1987. Orders to vendors for parts and assemblies

44

started going out in March as des igns were completed. After helping build the design engineering prototypes, AME determined the need for a few more fixtures. These were designed in May and June. Vendors sent fixture parts and assemblies starting in April through October. All fixtures and tools were in-house by October end.

Vendor Tooling

Vendors of off-the-shelf, commodity piece-parts for the 9400 product were chosen by Diane Barrett and others from Production Control and Purchasing. On the other hand, Vendor Engineering (VE ) dealt with select ion of vendors for fabr icat ion of custom piece-parts needed for the 9400. Any part that required some sort of machining to make it was considered "custom". These included moldings, extrusions, machinings, castings, bendings and stampings. The 9400 had approximately 250 custom parts, of which about 30% required that tooling, called "vendor tooling", be developed to manufacture them. The other 70% required no such sophisticated special tooling. Typically in a sub-assembly of 20 parts, only two or three would be custom.

The simpler parts included items such as machined rotational parts and stampings from standard die patterns. Items such as castings required vendor tooling (in this case, the cast). John Kennedy's group would assess which manufacturing process and vendor was appropriate for a given part. In many cases quite different manufacturing processes would meet the needs of the part and many trade-offs had to be considered. They considered tooling development costs, unit costs, part volumes, projected life of the tooling, part tolerances and greatly with the exactness of (for example, die casts and internal job shops were considered

other part

molds ve

issues. tolerances were most ndors.

Tool and expe

costs class nsive).

of varied

part CG' s

Activities

Design Engineering contacted Kennedy in the latter stages of concept development to see who from vendor engineering would be dedicated to the GraphicSet ter project. Kennedy at that time assigned Paul Comeau to this duty. Comeau, like all of the vendor engineers, had experience in machine shop manufacturing, and understood machine shop terminology and culture. This helped in forecasting potential vendor problems.

DE passed on parts sketches to Bob Gillin for certain parts as early as late 1986. Typically Design Engineering first had and passed on sketches of individual piece parts. Only later did they generate parts lists per assembly and assembly-level drawings. Unlike design engineering specifications which are developed in a top-down fashion, assembly drawings were built-up from individual part sketches. Gillin in turn passed on sketches for custom parts to vendor engineers who studied these sketches and made

45

preliminary decisions on the manufacturing process required to produce the part and in appropriate volumes.

Around January, 1987, Kennedy prepared- a proposed budget for vendor tooling activity. He preferred to base the costs for individual tools on actual vendor quotations, but had very few in hand this early in the development process. So he had to make many educated guesses on tooling cost s. As Crespan did for assembly tooling, Kennedy prepared E-numbers for vendor tools. The tooling budget figures were reported to Crespan, who used them in his funds request before Dick Renwick.

When the Xl parts list was released (January, 1987), vendors were told to start tooling development and fabrication of parts for those that Design Engineering considered "sure" because they were unlikely to be changed. For unsure parts, vendors were told to hold off development and fabrication until the X2 parts list was released (late March, 1987). Once a vendor had been chosen and told to start development, Kennedy and Comeau acted as liaisons between the vendor and CG, assisting in communication of sketches, design changes and other requirements. While Production Control actually ordered the parts and Purchasing actually paid for the parts, Vendor Engineering monitored the first few deliveries of a custom part from the vendor to see if any problems existed. If there were no problems, Vendor Engineering handed-off acquisition responsibilities to the other acquisition groups.

Soft and Hard Tools

It was desirable to have these custom parts produced by the actual vendors ready for use in both DE and AME prototypes to aid in product and process verif ication; however, parts were not always available and substitutes of some sort were often used. In the short term, Vendor Engineering was primarily concerned with simply getting the parts. They sometimes approved "soft tools", vendor tooling which was put together and produced parts quickly, but often cost much more per part and had shorter tool lives. In the longer term, they were active in vendor bidding and changes in vendor manufacturing processes that led to significant cost reductions. They moved all soft tool fabrication of custom parts to "hard tools" before the 9400 was passed on to Unit 80. Hard tools had lower unit costs and longer tool lives, but took longer to develop. An example of this was use of a sand cast with additional machining for an aluminum part--this cost more than a $100 per part but took only six weeks to set-up. The hard tool alternative was a plastic mold that cost only $7 per part but took five months for development lead time. In addition, the hard tool cost ten times more than the soft tool.

The approach of acquiring soft and hard tools required two sets of tools, part drawings and process plans. Whenever possible, the dual tooling approach was replaced by "simultaneous acquisition" where soft tools were avoided. However, this did

46

increase the risk of acquiring specifications changed.

inappropriate hard tools if part

Relationship With Other Functions

While Vendor Engineering actually chose the manufacturing process and vendor, Purchasing had final authority over certification of a vendor and appropriation of funds for parts. Comeau passed on a part sketch and formal request for quotation (RFQ) document per custom part to people in Purchasing who dealt with that class of part (for example, mechanical parts or plastics) . These Purchasing individuals had technical backgrounds. Often, the decision to choose a particular vendor was a mutual one between VE and Purchas ing. In part icular, Purchasing considered the vendor's "history" with CG, and other aspects, before finally approving a vendor. Vendor Engineering felt this was an appropriate check and balance system.

VE tried to help Design Engineering with acquisition of special parts for their feasibility tests, breadboards, demo units and prototypes. Typically, these early, low-volume parts were ordered through CG's job shops. However, these shops tended to be overloaded and sometimes were not as efficient in fabrication of these items as a vendor was. Kennedy would coordinate part fabrication activity with vendors. He did so occasionally also for AME builds. These activities helped VE gain early knowledge about the parts, and occasionally vendors used for fabrication of these early parts were retained for full-volume manufacturing also.

The appropriate choice of a vendor and manufacturing process had important downstream implications. In some cases, appropriate vendor choices led to reduced incoming parts inspection activity due to vendor history for quality. Also, certain vendors better understood the concept of "ship to stock" (Just-In-Time inventorying). Other vendors when instructed would pre-kit groups of parts, reducing the need for CG manufacturing personnel to inventory, handle and kit these parts. This also reduced part packaging costs. Certain manufacturing process choices, such as use of a plast ic molding vs. metal machined part reduced the number of specifications that needed to be inspected.

Purchased Materials Inspection Tooling

In a few cases (PMI) tools were developed by AME with cooperation from vendors to test a part. This was only done for critical parts. For example, special electronics testers were needed to test power supplies, opt ics benches were needed for testing optical elements and balancing tools were required to test spinner motor wobble. After developing and testing the tooling, calibration and acceptance test procedures (ATPs) were written. Certain PMI tools were resident at the vendor site, sometimes leading to problems in "correlating" the vendor test tooling with test tools located at CG. This happened due to very slight

47

differences in individual test units, slightly different procedures being used at different sites, and differences in environmental conditions (such as humidity and temperature) at various sites.

5.3 PARTS PROCUREMENT AND PRODUCTION CONTROL

Production Control (PC) was managed by Diane Barrett. Her responsibilities were to see that traditional production planning & control activities such as materials planning, scheduling, shop floor control, materials handling, kitting and expediting were done for all products new or already in production. PC's major role in the 9400 new product development was initial procurement of materials and start-up of the Materials Requirements Planning (MRP) systems. Cindy Maddox was a dedicated inventory analyst for the 9400, acting as a buyer and inventory planner. She also developed purchase order requisitions for materials.

The Xl parts list memo triggered purchasing activity for sure parts by Production Control, while the purchase start-up of remaining parts was triggered by the release of the X2 parts list. These lists were quite long, and described the parts and quantities required. For many parts, sketches and pictures were included. PC "loaded" these parts into the MRP computer system. When they did this, they checked to see whether a part had an already existing part number, and if not, assigned it one. At Compugraphic, parts were considered to be "global", that is, they transcended the product and were purchased and managed in a company-wide rather than product-specific basis (once start-up activities were completed). The custom parts acquired by vendor engineering also required part number selection and loading into the computer systems by production control. While VE dealt with vendor start-up of custom parts, PC managed initial vendor activities for off-the-shelf parts.

PC had no involvement with Design Engineering's demo units but did help considerably with ~aterials procurement for the DE prototypes of May/June, 1987. Traditionally, design engineers had dealt with the materials procurement paperwork, but were relieved to have PC take over much of this responsibility. This let the engineers have more time to do design work and have parts available when needed. On the other hand, this allowed Production Control to gain a much better understanding of the product, and earlier than normally happened. In addition, an agent from purchasing helped in this early stage.

Once she had the parts lists, Barrett developed a planning bill of materials (BOMs) to be used for acquisition of materials for the AME prototype builds. Often this was a laborious process, but was facilitated in this case by Dave Larsen from Design Engineering. He had previous experience in manufacturing (at another company) and so had awareness of bills of materials and

48

their uses. Larsen's parts lists documentation was already structured per standard BOMs, and so made development of planning bills much easier. Barrett continually updated the MRP BOMs and other records through the ramp-up effort for acquisition of materials for AM build and later full volume manufacturing at Unit 80.

For the DE prototypes, AME builds and into AM build, Barrett and Maddox determined the quantities of materials required, the dates that they were needed, and actually wrote and authorized the purchase orders; however, Purchasing actually released the funding for the oro.ers. Once the start-up activities were completed (usually after a few rounds of materials orders in later stages of

AM build), Purchasing gained responsibility for actually writing and implementing purchase orders. At this point, John Hurley (the Purchasing Manager) and others in procurement started more serious vendor negotiations considering long-term parts requirements and company-wide needs.

The materials start-up process was intensive. A weekly Critical Parts Meeting was chaired by Joe Costanzo and Diane Barrett and had regular participants from Design Engineering, Vendor Engineering, Purchasing and Production Control. The "focal point" design engineer who attended was Dave Larsen. He had been assigned by DE to deal with parts issues. Purchasing had several people active in these meetings. Each purchasing person for the most part represented a specific class of parts (such as mechanical or optics). Manufacturing engineers and individuals from Unit 80 attended on occasion as needed.

A number of other regular meetings were held by Costanzo and Barrett with Unit 80 having to do with bills of materials, problem parts, kitting issues, vendor issues, material handling, and transition of materials activities to full volume manufacturing. Some of these meetings were held at Unit 80 itself with the production control and purchasing people resident there.

5.4 AME ACTIVITIES THROUGH FIRST AME PROTOTYPES

Piece-Part Drawing Reviews

The March, 1987, mechanical piece-part group reviews by DE and AME led to recommendations for certain part tolerance and other changes. It also led to identification of the need for about five more PMI fixtures and a number of other additional purchased material inspections.

Preliminary Labor Standards

In mid-April, Gillin and Ceccherini developed preliminary labor requirements for production of the 9400. They determined labor standards (task times) for each operation and the product

49

routing as a whole. They also determined in a rough manner the labor grades (technical skill levels) required for production. These preliminary labor standards were communicated to Elaine Therriault, the Advanced Manufacturing Plant Manager to give her a sense of the number of assemblers at various skill levels to be recrui ted from Unit 80. She approved the standards as being reasonable and achievable. .Theselabor standards were also used for product cost estimation by Marketing and Sales.

AM Floor Layout

In May, AME presented the process flow chart that Gillin had been dynamically updating for several months to Design Engineering. DE did not disapprove of the flow plan. Based on the process flow chart and preliminary labor standards, AME in April and May drew up detailed production layouts for Advanced Manufacturing build. The AME prototype units would be produced on the AM floor but required little space since production volumes were very low and since not all fixtures/tools were available at that time. Little space was required for inventories. However, advanced manufacturing production levels were significant and involved many more people. This required careful planning of materials flows, location of equipment, and stocking areas. The AMEs employed their plant layout skills and at this time determined a detailed bench by bench, room by room allocation of space for each piece of equipment, each inventory type, and receiving/packaging.

A simpler layout for AME build was also made at this time in anticipation of August AME production. The main layout was in anticipation of fourth quarter, 1987, production. These layout efforts were conducted in parallel with many other AME tasks at that time and were time consuming in themselves since they required concept development of the flow, several iterations of drawings, a number of meetings and final planning on just how the layouts would get "implemented" on the shop floor (the relocation of equipment). Both AME and AM layouts were successfully presented for general AME approval in May. At that time, AME was concerned that they would not get enough space on the AM floor to conduct the AME prototype assembly.

Assisting Assembl¥ of Design Engineering Protot¥pes

Gillin, Waterman, and a quality engineer helped the design engineers assemble the Design Engineering prototypes--this was the first new product development where AME had involvement in DE prototypes. The first prototype took most of May to complete. The manufacturing engineers took this opportunity to not only increase the productivity of assembly but to review and debug all drawings. After reviewing the assembly-level drawings for producability, they suggested some changes to parts. They found physical interferences among parts in certain assemblies (sometimes very difficult to determine with assembly drawings

50

alone) and other errors. The AMEs gained a great deal of experience with the product and its assembly. They were able to determine just how difficult it would be to assemble the product. This experience would lead to improved estimation of required labor technical grades for assembly. The manufacturing engineers also identified where a number of small tools and fixtures could be used to ease assembly. These items included power screwdrivers, small clamping fixtures, and special bins for certain parts.

The AME involvement here served as a general check of the entire assembly process. They evaluated the planned manufacturing steps to see if certain unanticipated tasks arose. In addition to getting ideas for small tools, they determined in a few cases where more complex fixtures might reduce assembler problems. For example, they felt that certain portions of the BSM were very difficult to assemble, and so required modifications to BSM­related fixtures and tooling. Several new BSM-related fixtures were determined to be required, and design of these fixtures began in earnest. A few AME tools were already available in May and were used to assist in prototype assembly.

Another significant benefit gained from AME involvement was the ability to ascertain potential safety issues that with process changes could be eradicated or controlled. The manufacturing engineers noted where sharp edges occurred in the product and responded accordingly. They found that certain adhesives were used in various assembly steps. These task areas would require venting. Needs for control over laser assembly and errant beams were noted and led to enclosed laser diode test rooms and other safety measures. In another case, DE used small quantities of acetone to clean certain parts. High usage of this chemical, as would be required for full volume production, would require regulatory control and assembler training. The chemical would require special handling and disposal would be expensive. This issue was resolved when the manufacturing engineers determined that rubbing alcohol was a suitable alternative cleaning agent.

Fixture Calibration and Assembly

Parts and subassemblies of the fixtures started arriving in April, but most started arriving about June. By mid-May, AME had in-house several assembly fixtures, several PMI fixtures, and a number of tools. As fixture parts arrived, manufacturing engineers and the AME techs would assemble the fixtures, debug, calibrate and test them, and then write calibration procedures. A detailed calibration document was prepared for each PMI and assembly fixture and would be used to train Unit 80 manufacturing engineers, their techs, and shop floor workers in the exact methods of fixture setup and calibration. In many cases calibration required a number of subsidiary tools and fixtures, some of which were produced quickly right then. The calibration documents guided the fixture operator through many detailed steps. In most cases, these were supplemented with quite a few

51

explanatory activity was

sketches. Much of the calibration completed by August.

documentation

AME Prototypes: The First Set

By April design and manufacturing engineers knew that the leading system for the 9600 was not working well. The 9600 product was experiencing banding. It was fully expected that since the 9400 used a slightly modified version of that leading system that similar problems might arise. The extent of these problems would not be clear until AME prototypes were built.

AME prototype production had been originally scheduled for June, 1987, but slipped to August for a number of reasons including: changes by Design Engineering resulting in later release of revised part and assembly drawings, part shortages due to redesigns, and vendor delivery slips. The redesign issues had to do with the change from polygon optic to prism optic, revision of the encoder, and changes in printed circuit boards. Joe Costanzo was tracking the vendor and parts problems closely with dedicated meetings on the subject. Originally, first production of AM units was to start in September. This was moved two months to November.

Traditionally, AME prototypes were built in three sets of five units, as was done for the 9400 development also. The banding problem with the optics was solved by DE in May, and required changes to a number of parts and assemblies in the writing engine. Rather than delay AME build even further, it was decided in May itself to have the first set of AME prototypes use the old polygon optic. This would still allow testing of many aspects of the the product and manufacturing process. However, the banding error created by the polygon optic would commingle with the banding error caused by the borrowed leading system. Hence, the true leading system problems would not be determined until the second set of AME prototype units were built. These were scheduled for September assembly with the prism optic refit.

The GENICS software development, while on schedule, was not expected to be available until November. Until then, the writing engine was to be tested with special computer files residing in the engine operating system software. So, while the full functionality of the product could not be tested until both the GENICS and 9400 writing engine were integrated, a number of preliminary tests could be made to determine photo-image quality.

The AME build was the first time AME gained primary responsibility for moving the new product development along. The hope at this point was that no more major design changes would be required. AME's goals were to:

1) debug and refine the manufacturing process 2) determine the most efficient assembly methods for the product.

52

People involved in assembly of the first set of AME units included all of the AME manufacturing/test engineers involved in tooling ramp-up, and mos·t of the Design Engineering team. Technicians from AME and DE assisted. No one from Unit 80 or any shop floor people were involved with the first set of AME units. The assembly was conducted on the AM floor using the AME layout prepared earlier. They used as many of the fixtures and tools ("production tooling") as were available. Similarly, they used as many of the "production parts" acquired by Barrett and Kennedy as possible. The bulk of the parts (except for a few critical ones) had arrived in July.

As they assembled the prototypes, they found dozens of minor problems and question areas that were quickly resolved by design engineering. A major problem was found with the encoder--it inappropriately blocked part of the laser beam. Design Engineering said this would be resolved with the prism optic design. Other issues regarding assembly and photo-image quality were noted by AME and presented to DE. DE agreed to resolve any problems in these areas.

5.5 CONTINUING AME RAMP-UP ACTIVITY

As a result of the first set of AME prototypes, manufacturing engineers determined and reviewed with design engineers minor revisions in a few part and assembly drawings. This review activity continued through mid-October. The revised drawings were called "supplemental sheets" and the newest parts list was referred to as the "X2A Revision". The new list was communicated to Diane Barrett, John Kennedy and others so that they might alter acquisition activities as needed. However, drawings having to do with the BSM and BGM had not been revised and would not be until after the second set of AME prototypes (with the prism optic) was assembled.

In September, 1987, Gillin ~nd other manufacturing engineers finished the final labor standards for the 9400 by incorporating knowledge gained from the assembly of design engineering and the initial set of AME prototypes. This list was reviewed with Therriault, who then used it recruit exact numbers of shop floor personnel at appropriate technical skill levels. The time standards were loaded into the MRP system and were used for subsequent manufacturing planning. However, these standards were not used for personnel performance measurement in the company.

After the first set of AME prototypes, several AME techs who had not previously worked with the 9400 ramp-up joined the team. They were trained by Ceccherini and Gillin to calibrate and operate most of the assembly fixtures. These techs, in addition to other techs already working on the project, then wrote the procedures for usage of the equipment and other assembly tasks.

53

Instructions having to do with assembly and alignment were usually "Manufacturing Operations Procedures" (MOPs), while those having to do with electronics~nd testing were called "Test Engineering Procedures" (TEPs). Each assembly-level drawing had associated with it at least one MOP, and often had several subsidiary procedures. Like the calibration procedures written earlier, these listed detailed steps required to accomplish the given task and the supplementary tools needed. Instructional sketches were included. These procedures would be used to train other techs and shop floor workers. All of the procedures were completed by early November after the assembly of the second set of AME prototypes.

In September, more fixture parts and assemblies were received from vendors, fully assembled, debugged, calibrated and integrated into the manufacturing process. Also, many of the materials required for the AM build were coming in. In mid-September they found that the GENICS software development was one month behind schedule, and would delay the integration and test of the 9400/GENICS system. The second set of AME prototypes was delayed one month (slipped from September to October) due to the optics redesign. While shipment of production units to beta sites also slipped one month to a planned start in January, 1988, the First Customer Ship (FCS) was still planned for first quarter 1988. Advanced Manufacturing build was to start in November.

In October, the second set of AME prototypes was assembled. This set had the prism optic and used modified assemblies and tooling. For this set the manufacturing engineers built the first few units, with the technicians (from Ballardvale and Unit 80) assembling the remaining ones. These techs started writing and revising a number of procedures.

Spinner Motor and Stop-Start Banding

The assembly of units with the prism optic redesign brought about a multitude of manufacturing problems. The original polygon optic design had on-axis rotation of the element. The new prism optic was retrofitted into this design but did not have on-axis attachment and rotation. The off-axis rotation introduced centrifugal forces on the optical element, causing stresses on the optic. In addition, the original BSM des ign had no extra space for clamping mechanisms. So the prism optic redesign had to use a glue-type adhesive to hold the optics. This interface between the optic, holding mechanisms and scanner assembly was not "clean", that is, it introduced thermal gradients leading to additional stresses. This was because the aluminum base of the BSM assembly and the glass of the optics were incompatible materials, and the glue did not mediate properly. The first adhesive employed also shrunk with time, adding additional stresses to the optics. These combined stresses sometimes led to the optic deforming, which modified the laser beam traveling through it, greatly diminishing copy quality. In other instances, the stresses led to cracks in

54

the optic, and on a few occasions the prism optic flew out of the scanner assembly.

While the problem source was found easily when the second set of AME units were built, finding design and manufacturing solutions were not so easy. Both DE and AME simply did not have that much experience with. manufacture of optical assemblies. DE and AME worked closely to resolve the problems. The OSM software was used to support modeling and analysis. A number of different adhesives, optics mounting schemes, and assembly processes were tested to reduce thermal gradients, increase retention of the optic, and ,better absorb stresses and shocks. This design and manufacturing learning took place over several months. Design and manufacturing changes were for the most part in place by January, but BSM module yields remained low for the next six months. The problems were reduced by finding an effective adhesive, a new curing process, and modification of the optics clamping mechanism.

An unanticipated form of banding was observed with the second set of AME units. This banding was traced to the spinner motors. By careful product experimentation, the design and manufacturing engineers found that motors from different spinner motor vendors (there were two primary vendors) had different wobble characteristics. Two consultants were brought in to aid in analysis, but the exact causes of the wobble were difficult to find, and took several months to resolve. The Compugraphic engineers determined that the wobble was created by imperfections in the ball-bearings used in the spinner motors. These ball­bearings caused regular vibrations (harmonics) in the motor which in turn shook the scanning optics, causing the laser diode beam to be improperly transmitted through the optics. The problem source was isolated in November, and after close interaction with vendors, spinner motor assembly redesigns which used "isolators" were implemented by February, 1988, solving the spinner motor banding problem.

The spinner motor banding and an assembly process work-around masked a problem having to do with the periscope mirrors. The original alignment tool for these mirrors used a special type of light to make sure the mirrors were put in place and aligned properly. The light source was found to be incompatible with the mirrors. Until AME redesigned the periscope mirror alignment tool, Design Engineering approved a temporary work-around for AME units that used epoxy to hold the mirrors. The actual design specifications did not allow this. Once the spinner motor problem was solved, and once the actual mirrors and revised alignment tool were used, the engineers found that the periscope mirrors were not held firmly enough in place. The unit as a whole vibrated a little, but reached a steady state rather quickly. However, these periscope mirrors continued to vibrate--they did not achieve steady state until much longer. The mirror vibration contributed to "stop-start banding". The epoxied versions had reduced mirror vibration; in addition, spinner motor banding covered-up banding caused by the mirror vibration. The stop-start banding problem

55

was first found in March, 1988, and was resolved two months later with use of a different mirror mount.

Leading System Issues

The second set of AME prototypes also showed the anticipated banding and other problems resulting from the leading system. The leading system did not handle the media very well. The media often did not travel in a straight line, and so experienced jamming and other media movement (" steering") problems. These problems reduced the photo-image "repeatability" and caused variations in the page photo-image length. There was some initial debate between the 9600 and 9400 development teams on who should do the required leading system redesign. The 9600 people had not recognized the leading system problems early on in the 9600 development. They were busy working on the 9700 and were unwilling to go back to this issue. Nonetheless, they modified the leading system.

These modifications required changes in mechanics (for example, different roller diameter) and associated electronics (new current levels, different media steering mechanisms and springs, new electronic components). It was easier to incorporate the mechanical changes in the 9400, but electrical changes required not only new parts but redesign of several printed circuit boards, which required a lot of work. The primary leading system modifications were completed by November, and implemented in the manufacturing process in December. This also required modified fixtures. This redesign for the most part solved leading system banding problems.

Other AME and Program Actiyities

Gillin had discussions with Unit 80 manufacturing engineers in October to see whether they would be willing to manufacture the leading system modules for use in AM production and the final set of AME prototypes. Since Unit 80 was already producing the leading systems for the 9600, they could easily move to produce and burn-in the 9400 leading systems. This would also save space on the AM floor. Unit 80 accepted this responsibility, and started shipping leading system modules to Ballardvale starting in December, 1987.

By October end, all fixtures were in-house and in use. Several underwent refinement so that they better achieved design specifications and were easier for the assemblers to use. A few did not work as intended and were reworked. Problems with the optics led to modification of several fixtures/tools. These fixture redesigns were started in November. Continuous refinement of assembly and PMI tools took place through AME and much of the AM builds. A few fixtures/tools would not be completely ready until February, 1988, but acceptable short-term "work arounds" were put in place to allow production activity to continue. For

56

example, the design engineering optics labs were used to prepare certain optics assemblies.

Also in October, the manufacturing engineers fully implemented the full volume Advanced Manufacturing floor layout. However, Marketing started to get concerned that the product would not be available for shipment in first quarter, 1988, and proposed that the commercial launch be moved from January to April, 1988. In addition, TPS, which had responsibility for systems testing of the product, stated it would have to delay the start of testing at least one month because they were overloaded with other testing work. There was a TPS queue. By November, the GENICS software development had slipped another month and was not expected for testing until mid-January, 1988. While working AME writing engine units were available, they could not be fully tested without the GENICS software. In November, Marketing decided not to commit to any launch date due to uncertainty over product availability and lack of 9400/GENICS demo units.

In November, the manufacturing engineers started working closely with several vendors to resolve part problems. A few critical parts were not meeting specifications. This was due to vendor underestimation of the complexity of the part or other vendor problems. In some cases parts were modified at CG. In most cases, manufacturing and vendor engineers spent some time at vendor sites trying to determine and resolve the problems. This close vendor interaction continued through early 1988. The AMEs fully expected that a few parts would have these problems--this invariably happened with every development project.

Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance Criteria for the 9400/GENICS were set in November. These criteria were jointly determined by DE, AME, Manufacturing, CSD, TPS, Marketing, Quality Engineering and other functions. The objective of the criteria was to make sure that all organizational functions were fully prepared for product launch. The FCS would not be allowed until all functions "signed-off" on the product at a formal Corporate Product Acceptance Review to be held later. Certain acceptance criteria had to do with the product's reliability and achievement of design/marketing high-level specifications, while others were concerned with system elements being in place. Such elements included user manuals, accessory kits, spare parts, packaging, and so forth. Preparatory acceptance review meetings (called "readiness reviews") were to be managed by Pete Schacht and J. J. McTeague, Vice President for Quality Assurance. The review was to be conducted some time after units were installed in field beta sites. This review process was a remnant of the Product Life Cycle new product development regulatory format.

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Final AME Build

The third set of five AME prototype units was assembled in December, 1987. These were for the most part assembled by techs from AME and Unit 80 on the AM floor. Generally the photo-image (copy) quality was acceptable for most customer applications, though problems existed with· the spinner wobble. Other photo-image quality problems at this time included inappropriate scan line width and variation in the density of the writing along the scan line. Some of these problems resulted in modifications to AME fixtures. Others were investigated by DE. Resolution of the densi ty problem required a certain amount of DE electronics redesign.

Several modules were considered "safe", that is, working well and unlikely to be redesigned or requiring rework. AM production of these modules began. Starting in early 1988 they tried to build as much of the machine as was possible by building modules for inventory. The Unit 80 shop floor workers there at Ballardvale would have been idle otherwise. Also, once problem modules were resolved, they could be produced and full units put together quite quickly.

Advanced Manufacturing Floor Management and Assembler Training

Elaine Therriault, the AM Plant Manager, had four group leaders assisting her with the 9400 shop floor ramp-up efforts. These group leaders were AM technicians resident at Ballardvale. Each previously had been an assembler at Unit 80. Two of the group leaders were dedicated to mechanical issues dealt with hardware, bills-of-material and other materials concerns. The other two were dedicated to technical issues and dealt with assembly procedures, photo-imaging final inspection and other testing. Several of these technicians worked with the manufacturing engineers during AME prototype development and subsequently wrote assembly procedures.

Therriault had already been. notified regarding direct labor requirements to support the 9400. She reviewed the preliminary and final labor standards documents and requested certain numbers of assemblers and various skill levels from Unit 80. While she did no actual hiring of individuals to Compugraphic, she did recruit particular individuals she felt were most talented from Unit 80 for AM activity at Ballardvale. She was also notified of the need for AME and AM production space, and managed space issues for whatever products were being assembled there and would be soon. Slips in the various build schedules (due to engineering redesigns and so forth) played havoc with her space allocation and production schedule efforts. She had to dynamically update space and production activities, sometimes using several shifts of assemblers at bottleneck stations for particular products and transitioning products and modules to Unit 80 earlier or later than originally planned.

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Most of the assemblers had been recruited and were at Ballardvale by November, 1987. The technicians, in their group leader roles, t rained the shop floor workers in the various assembly tasks. Training· -times varied gre-atly by task and labor grade. By early January, 1988, the techs had trained shop floor workers in the assembly of all sure modules.

The role of the AM floor was two-fold. Firstly, it served to debug the product and process and gain all benefits of manufacturing learning before transfer to the full volume manufacturing site. Secondly, it produced product for revenue while the incremental refinements in product and process were taking place. These roles were in contrast to the role of Unit 80. The full volume site was for highly efficient high volume manufacture. The production rate at 80 was at least three times higher than Ballardvale's.

The start-up and management of the AM floor was communication intensive. As AM module builds began in January, and continuing through 1988, Joe Costanzo conducted a daily 8:30 AM meeting right on the shop floor. These meetings lasted anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour and served to go over all manufacturing and design engineering problems found, changes in modules, production progress and other production issues. The attendees changed from day to day as issues changed. Typical attendees included:

- Production Control (Diane Barrett, Cindy Maddox and others)

Design Engineering (Dave Larsen always attended, Goulet as needed, functional area engineers such as Phil Rombult or Mark Barrett as needed)

- Manufacturing Engineers (Bill Ceccherini)

a quality engineer

- AM shop floor Plant Manager and group leaders

a customer service representative (to keep up to date on product changes and problems that might affect activity in progress at trade shows and demonstrations)

an individual from Unit 80

Therriault preceded the daily Costanzo meeting with a brief review of all materials changes, shortages and assembly issues with the assistant plant manager and group leaders. She also often led end of day wrap-up meetings when they were needed.

59

Packaging and Vibration

By December, the ~ackaging engineer completed the prototype system package for the writing engine. - Work had started on development of the system package when the design engineering prototypes were completed (June, 1987). These prototypes were weighed and their physical dimensions measured. Then, the prototype system package was put together for testing with the AME prototypes. This package included a wooden pallet, several wooden platforms, styrofoam pieces, a cardboard box, graphics on the cardboard, strapping and other elements. The package had to protect the product during shipping.

There were industry and CG-internal standards that the package had to achieve for drop and handling conditions. Units destined for international markets required higher levels of protection, and graphics were different for domestic and international markets. Shipping strategies were taken into account determine the stackability and other aspects of packages. Around December, the packaging engineer began development of field service packages for individual modules. Certain modules, such as the BSM, were particularly fragile and required specially considered packaging. There was a science to packaging and many trade-offs existed. Labor and materials costs had to minimized while meeting shipping requirements. The engineer also interacted with vendors to reduce packaging element costs.

In December, AME defined the packaging drop test procedure to be used for the 9400. It included a listing of the areas to be inspected for damage after the test drop. Shock and vibration tests were conducted for two AME prototype units. They failed the reliability tests--the product was not expected to withstand shipping. This required redesign of the base castings of the product. "Arms" were added to these castings to increase machine stability. All writing engines already assembled were reworked by March, 1988.

Beta Sites

At the outset of the new product development, units produced in AME build were to be placed in customer beta-sites by October, 1987. This target date slipped due to engineering redesigns and resulting later AME ramp-up. The date also slipped due to problems in finding appropriate beta sites.

Management of beta activity required considerable logistical coordination. In the first stages of the 9400 development, TPS (which reported to CSD) was responsible for these tasks. Later, the primary responsibility moved to a Field Service testing & coordination group. This transition led to a further one month delay in beta activity. The objective of beta testing was to see how the unit would operate in a real customer environment. The usage was quite rigorous in some cases, and Field Service and others would meet with users to collect quantitative operating

60

characteristic data and general impressions regularly (usually weekly) .

Site selection was co-determined by Pete Schacht, Field Service and others. They preferred to go back to customers who had served as beta sites before. There was always some difficulty in obtaining beta sites because customers (here, low and middle­volume businesses) were unwilling to use an unproven product. This problem was exacerbated when the beta stage slipped. The publishing industry had certain especially high demand cycles within a year, and the beta stage slipped into one of these (February). . Two good beta sites were picked in March. Several others would be added in time. The first domestic betas were installed in May, 1988, and the first international betas were installed in June. Pete Schacht, concerned that the product was reaching the market much later than targeted, cut the beta duration somewhat, but did not allow FCS until solid beta data was in hand. He and Field Service continued beta site data collection and evaluation even after FCS.

Cost Reduction

Starting in January, 1988, and continuing until the 9400 was transferred to Unit 80 (April, 1989), AME and PC actively reduced direct costs for the 9400. Most of the reduction was achieved by third quarter 1988. In January, 1988, the unit direct cost was estimated to be at least 30% over original targets. Traditionally, a group called Product Support & Enhancement (PSE) took responsibility for cost reduction and product enhancement effort s . However, this group had been disbanded in 1986 and merged into Design Engineering to make better use of engineering resources. The 9400 development was the first time PC/AME took this responsibility. Joe Costanzo led weekly Cost Reduction meetings and coordinated this activity.

The primary method of direct cost reduction was through cuts in materials costs, which resulted in almost all of the direct cost overage being cut by the time the product was transferred to Unit 80. Half of this reduction carne about due to changes in vendors. These were due to vendor bidding and general research into alternative vendors was conducted by PC, Purchasing, and Vendor Engineering. Sometimes parts were replaced with different, lower-unit-cost, but equivalent-function parts. This carne about due to vendor research and switching production of parts from soft tools to hard tools. Certain inventory strategies were put in place to cut unit part costs. Production of certain items was brought in-house. Finally, the 9400 was in Advanced Manufacturing Build for 16 months, leading to great learning about the machine and subsequent cost reductions.

Final AME Activities

In January, AME and DE reviewed the results of the fifteen AME prototypes. They decided that photo-image quality was

61

generally acceptable, but that "yield" problems existed in achievement of certain specif icat ions. For example, only a percentage of the units passed a given critical specification. These low yields were due to part quality problems, design problems and fixture problems. Quality units meeting all specifications could be produced, but the manufacturing effectiveness would be low when yields for certain modules were low.

As of February, all of the AME fixtures (including new ones designed in late 1987) were fully implemented in the manufacturing process. Full AME writing engine units were being shipped internally for TPS testing, reliability testing, and inspection by other Compugraphic divisions such as the Type group. Many minor design and manufacturing problems arose. As they were resolved, more arose. Improvements in photo-image quality continued through June, 1988, when complete image quality was achieved. This happened when all significant banding problems (spinner motor, stop-start, and leading system) had been eradicated. The product and process was tweaked and improved continually through 1988.

By February end, the primary part of the writing engine development was essentially complete; however, the 9400/GENICS development would not be finally done until the complete GENICS software was available. At this time, production of working modules generally went on at full steam. AME concentrated on particular areas with yield problems.

The GENICS software development was in deep trouble. The software group had greatly underestimated the development effort required. This was in part due to surprises arising from first time usage of the UNIX operating system. For instance, UNIX did not support real-time processing and control, a capability required for RIPs. An inconvenient and time consuming software work-around approach was implemented. The software design hierarchy had not been fully thought-out in early design stages, and so was poorly structured, leading to problems with software features and sub-routines. The manager of software development did not use rigorous project management techniques like the other engineering section managers, and was unable to communicate the magni tude of development problems to others in the development project until too late. Both Marketing and software development groups tried to add more functionality to the GENICS RIP in early stages of the software development, leading to changes in specifications and continuous new software engineering learning along the way. These problems, coupled with turnover in the software development group and resulting experience losses, led to great delays in GENICS development.

By March, 1988, a defeatured (very basic) version of the GENICS software was released to TPS for testing with the writing engine at a systems level. In April, the domestic launch of the 9400/GENICS was moved to July, with anticipated August FCS. By May end, Marketing moved the commercial launch date to October.

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In May, Dave Crespan conducted with others in AME a detailed critique of the AME ramp-up process and outcomes for the 9400 writing engine. They did so at this time because fixture and tooling activity had been (practically) completed in February, and the ramp-up was still fresh in the engineers' minds. The critique report was reported to Dick Renwick. Their major conclusions are listed below in the Project Assessment section.

While the writing engine reached complete photo-image quality in June, the GENICS software continued to slip. Nonetheless, the defeatured version was available and working. By this time approximately fifteen 9400s with various levels of defeatured GENICS had been shipped internally (non-revenue ships) for testing and evaluation purposes. These units went to functional groups including TPS, International TPS, CSD, Reliability Engineering, ASD, Agfa (Belgium), Marketing, Quality Engineering and Design Engineering. In addition, various front-end device groups at CG received these AME/AM units. Approximately 25 complete units were planned for shipment as demonstration units for Marketing purposes in August and September. In June, assembly of full writing engine units started, and could have been considered the true beginning of complete unit AM build. These complete 9400 writing engines were called "production units." Still, they were concerned about low BSM yields.

Readiness Reviews

The first readiness review meeting was held in late July, 1988, with hopes of an August 26th acceptance and resulting FCS. The purpose of the review was to make sure that all potential "gates" (restrictions on acceptance) were recognized and acted upon. The major issue areas addressed included:

- product performance to specifications - reliability testing results and MTTFs - beta site feedback - serviceability and customer service readiness in terms of

photo-image quality - AM build capabilities - media, chemical processors and other chemical availability - user manuals and user training capabilities in place - review of product name and related legal issues - availability of accessory hardware (cables, furniture, kits) - incoming order processing for 9400/GENICS - marketing launch plans and literature

At this meeting the group identified a number of concerns, but felt that all requirements would be in place by late August. The primary concern was whether GENICS would be available. Jeff Elliot outlined the nature of the final readiness review meeting. Each functional area group was to present in less than ten minutes what requirements were completed, and what if any "outstanding

63

items" still needed resolution. No new issues were to be brought up at the meeting, and all outstanding items were to have an associated time, resource and risk analysis. Each functional group, representing their particular Vice President, would recommend whether to accept the product system and allow first customer ship.

The next readiness meeting was held two weeks later. Pete Schacht stated in the minutes of that meeting:

"Everything looks good except for software, where we've again ended up with options of release it with more bugs and less functionality or delaying the release. This situation will be worked aggressively and reviewed again."

At the next readiness review meeting, which was held a few days later, two major GENICS software problems were found. There were no hardware (9400 writing engine) problems. It was decided that requirements of the Corporate Product Acceptance Review of August 26 could not be met, and so was cancelled. The August software problems were resolved but several new ones emerged. Also, Quality Engineering completed a rigorous burn-in evaluation of the 9400 writing engine and found problems that were gates. In an early September memo, Schacht tried to rationalize the situation and rally the spirit of all involved:

"This project needs a strong sense of positive thinking. Due to Integrator paranoia, the closer we get to planned 9400 ship dates, the more reasons are found to hold it up. It is imperative that we focus on important issues (risks to customer satisfaction) and not let lesser problems further delay shipment of what promises to be an outstanding product. It is therefore also critical to qualify outstanding items as to their interim impact on users and field service, but if we wait until there are UQ. outstanding items, the 9400 will never ship."

All parties involved worked feverishly to resolve outstanding gates and complete the many other less significant but required activities involved in a new product launch. All software and hardware gates were resolved by late September. A September 23, 1988, readiness review determined that the final acceptance review would be held in a week.

Ken Draeger, the new President of Agfa Compugraphic, routed a note to Pete Schacht. It was written on the cover page of a copy of the minutes memo from the September 23 readiness review. Draeger noted:

"Our reputation is about to be tested with the first shipments of this new and very important product. Meeting our schedules is extremely important, but our

64

reputation for quality and reliability are paramount. All the best to you and your team."

The Corporate Product Acceptance Review was held on September 30, 1988, using the guidelines prepared earlier by Elliot. The functional area groups that presented were: Design Engineering, Domestic Marketing, International Marketing, Advanced Manufacturing, Quality Engineering, Accessories & Supplies Division, Type (font) Division, Customer Service Division and Product Planning. All acceptance criteria (most were set in November, 1987) were accepted at this meeting, except for a set of three minor software issues that required "patches" (software engineering changes). All functions except TPS signed-off on the product, allowing the first revenue units of the 9400/GENICS to be shipped subject to subsequent sole TPS approval. The software patches were implemented quickly and TPS sign-off on October 14. In all, nine readiness review meetings had been held over two months. The actual first customer (revenue) shipment occurred on October 26, 1988, nine months after the original target FCS date.

5.6 ACTIVITIES AFTER ACCEPTANCE

Project Post-Mortem

A few days after TPS signed-off the Quality Engineering manager) distributed a

9400, Harvey Blmemo setting up

oom (a ground

rules for a "Critique of the 9400 Development Process." He stated that all were part of the process, and so equally "guilty for the sins of the past." He urged that task committee members recognize that they were professional managers interested in future improved performance. His goals were to list the new product development problems and causes, and determine recommendations for improvement. He proposed several meetings to be conducted over the following weeks. Post-Mortem committee members included included managers from hardware and software DE, AME and PC, program management, Quality Engineering and Customer Service. Vice-presidents Renwick and McTeague were also very active.

The first meeting was to be a general open discussion. The following meetings were to have presentations on program management and manufacturing development processes. The memo also had a one page questionnaire on individual responsibilities and opinions regarding the 9400.

At the first meeting was held in late October (it was missed by Design Engineering due to schedule conflicts) Pete Schacht presented a detailed chronological listing of "Salient Events" in the life of the project. Substantial discussion was held on delay problems and causes. A management consultant gave a presentation on new product development, and others helped generate a list of techniques to speed up new product development. At the following meeting, DE presented what they thought to be the major delays and

65

causes, and did so after concurring with Schacht's chronology. Joe Costanzo supplied and described a list of all engineering changes through September 1988 and their effects on the 9400' s performance. There was substantial discussion on major design and manufacturing problems, their root causes and suggested remedies.

A final memo distilling all concerns and recommendations to four points was sent to Michael Paige, Senior Vice President for Engineering, and all task members for comment. The four "key success factors" stated were:

- market driven strategy - clearly defined product owner - resources properly matched to tasks - open communications.

This memo had several pages further describing these factors and providing other bullet recommendations for future development projects. Several of these recommendations are described in the Project Assessment section below.

After First Customer Ship

In the fourth quarter of 1988 yields that had been low for certain modules were improved greatly. Due to assembled modules already in inventory, and aggressive AM build, Compugraphic made up for most of the past-due (back-ordered) 1988 sales. Order input was very strong domestically and internationally, and the product was a great success at an international trade show held at that time.

The development activity focus turned to completion of the next release (the 2.0 version) of GENICS software. They also started work on the 9400PS, a PostScript RIP for use with the 9400. This effort required modification of the GENICS electronics and software, and a new printed circuit board in the 9400 writing engine. The markets were demanding PostScript-compatible equipment, and the modular syst,em design for the 9400/GENICS allowed customers to use a PostScript RIP in place of the GENICS. The 9400 was the first Compugraphic image-setter to be PostScript compatible. This would prove to be a great boon in the markets. It was decided that a wide media version of the 9400 was not needed. The markets that Marketing thought would want wide-media image-setters did not, and sales levels had been disappointingly low for the 9700.

Writing Engine Reduced Spot

Marketing requested that an enhancement be made to the 9400 writing engine that would have the laser diode write beam write on the media with a smaller "spot". This spot would be 10 microns wide rather than the original specification of 30 microns. The spot was the diameter of beam at point of contact with the media.

66

A smaller spot would provide the greater sharpness that certain customers desired. "Reduced-spot" size activity began in November, 1988. Design Engineering designed the reduced-spot engine by making modifications to the - 9400. DE was more interested in moving onto development of the next new product, and so left some of the work for AME. Joe Costanzo was willing to take on the effort and administer necessary design changes into the manufacturing process so that the extra product functionality would be available.

DE wanted the engineering change to be cut-in directly into the on-going manufacturing process, but AME was hesitant about taking this risk and instead offered to ramp-up the engineering change. DE felt that AME was being overly cautious, but AME was concerned with producability and achievement of the functionality, and was not willing to take major risks. AME recorded design and manufacturing issues, resolved them with some DE interaction. capability was fully implemented in mid-1989.

built 20 units and and subsequently The reduced-spot

The reduced-spot engineering change led to increased functionality but also reduced materials costs since an off-the­shelf collimating lens costing at least $100 less could be used instead of the custom one originally required. Also, Marketing first decided to sell the reduced-spot writing engine as a separate product, but later decided to have the reduced-spot capability put into all machines. Marketing felt it wise to simply offer one product with greater functionality than to manage two products in the market.

Transfer to Full-Scale Manufacturing

All of the assembly equipment was moved to Unit 80 for start of full volume production in April and May, 1989. The 9400 product and manufacturing process was very stable at that time, and ready to move on. Bill Cook from Unit 80 had been at Ballardvale through-out the ramp-up and managed the transition process of equipment and personnel. All shop floor workers transferred. Therriault's group leader technicians transferred to Unit 80, but would return to Ballardvale after start-up activities were completed. There was no formal hand-over day. This was in contrast to some earlier transfers that literally took place on a specific date. In the case of the 9400, assemblers and equipment associated with particular tasks and modules were "phased" over to Unit 80. Several tasks/equipment were transferred each week. This did not unduly stress management, personnel, and transportation resources. Costanzo, Diane Barrett, Cook, Ceccherini, and manufacturing engineers and managers from Unit 80 had been meeting at both sites for several months to prepare for the transition.

Once fixtures/tools were at Unit 80, they were all recalibrated and verified. Dick Carville, the Plant Manager at

67

Unit 80, stated that the assembly process only required a few days of technical debugging after it was trans ferred there. Certain previous products required months of debugging. The 9400 had spent over a year at Ballardvale in advanced manufacture, and all ident if iable technical problems had already been resolved. In addition, Diane Barrett had worked closely with Unit 80 regarding bills-of-materials and "problem parts." Unit 80 planned to have careful materials management of five delicate and long-lead time parts. They also started assembly process streamlining activities right away. These efforts included sequencing of materials per JIT flows; reductions in task cycle times; elaboration and simplification of assembly procedures; reductions in inventories, kitting lead times and materials handling; initiation of certain process inspection activities and enhanced assembler training.

Product Phase-Out

Partly due to the delay in FCS for the 9400, its market product life was extended. As of later 1989, no more options were added to the 9400 product. Generally, salespeople in the field communicate to product planners when they feel the product's popularity is starting to diminish. This information, combined with more sophisticated Marketing sales forecasting and product planning for improvement replacement products, leads to aggregate planning efforts to taper-off manufacture of the product. For products being phased out, Compugraphic tries to minimize finished goods inventory, and occasionally discounts prices for these units. Field Service gains responsibility for the product during and after its phase-out. They tell Manufacturing how many extra modules need to be made so that Field Service has enough spares on hand. In addition, Manufacturing will continue production of certain parts and modules for years after phase-out, though they will not produce full units. There are trade-offs considered regarding cost of inventory and cost of continued manufacture. Finally, there is a very active used equipment business in the publishing industry, so modules and parts are also available in the market outside of Compugraphic.

6. PRODUCT AND PROJECT ASSESSMENT

6.1 MARKET IMPACT

On September 29, 1989, Agfa Compugraphic management set up first year birthday parties for the 9400 at each CG facility in Haverhill. The "cakes, speeches and general merriment" were to celebrate shipment of more than 2000 units of what was one of Compugraphic's most successful products. According to Pete Schacht, actual sales greatly outpaced forecasts, and they "can't build them fast enough" to sat is fy the market. This success

68

derived from the product's capabilities, reasonable cost, high reliability, system modularity and compatibility with PostScript systems. The 9400 was a revenue leader for CG in 1989, and helped firm up Agfa Compugraphic's position as industry leader.

6.2 NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT ASSESSMENT

AME CritiQue.

The Crespan AME ramp-up process review noted that on the positive side:

- all vendor tooling and piece parts were available early

- all part and assembly drawings, when available, had been reviewed early for manufacturability

- to the degree that design information was available, all fixtures were thoroughly reviewed and calibrated early

- fixtures/tooling redesigns were successful

- On the negative side:

- the schedule for assembly fixture design, build, calibration and tryout was aggressive and did not allow time buffers for redesign

- underestimation of time, design effort and manufacturing requirements associated with optics

- software delays affected AME's ability to test the product

Post-Mortem.

The Bloom 9400 Product Development Review stated that they could improve future new product developments by:

- high use of standard, proven modules

- fully characterizing any new modules, and reducing risk by understanding module complexities through bread-boarding and modeling

- putting in place process checkpoints to monitor progress

- keeping the Project Team intact for the life of the project, and minimizing personnel turnover

69

communicating all changes in project priorities to the entire team

- developing and maintaining software tools for engineering development

Bloom also pointed out that project tasks must be defined clearly and that communication between and even within functions was essential to success. He felt that efforts should be put in place to enhance such communication, and added that specials efforts for synchronization of hardware and software activity were required.

Other Comments

Ron Goulet was particularly pleased with the 9400's service history. The product had virtual 100% yield on installation, and required fewer service calls per year than original goals. Also, the product once transferred to Unit 80 did not require any further support from Design Engineering. There were no manufacturing "hick-ups". He was proud of the 9400 due to its technical capabilities, reliability and successful sales. He did state that in the future he would try to further separate research activities from development efforts because "R and D should not be done simultaneously." He added that computer analysis was integral to effective design, and that more would be used in the future.

Pete Schacht, also pleased with what the 9400 had done for Agfa Compugraphic, did note that the nine month delay in reaching the market meant that "nine months of revenue were lost forever." He felt that the shift to UNIX for GENICS development was the primary delay cause.

Agfa compugraphic learned a significant amount about new product development. This experience aided greatly in downstream product developments. In particular, they:

- set a base of technological learning for diodes, motors and optics

- developed a system and in-product modularity approach that could be leveraged with downstream products

- set up CAD and other software tools, and were in a position to further develop this support base

- had a taste of and initial learning about the benefits of simultaneous engineering in terms of improved manufacturability, earlier and easier manufacturing ramp-up, and greatly improved procurement and production control, enhanced communication across functions, and synergistic decision making

70

- found that project management techniques were needed not only across but within functional and sub­functional groups __

- had new ways of thinking about vendor relationships.

All in all, the 9400 development highlighted the need for continuous improvement in the new product development process and set a superb base to support future development projects.

#

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EXHIBITS

EXHIBIT 1: GENERALIZED ELECTRONIC PRE-PRESS SYSTEM

SCANNER 1­ - -

HIGH

FUNCTION

FRONT-END

SCANNER I­ - -

MACINTOSH

OR OTHER

PC

RASTER IMAGE

PROCESSOR

DEVELOPER PRINTING

PRESS

EXHIBIT 2: GRAPHICSETTER OPTO-MECHANICAL FUNCTIONAL SYSTEM DIAGRAM

"Write" "Reference" laser laser Diode Diode

Beam Combiner

Mirrors Periscope

Scan Lens

Beam Generatlonl SCanning Modul8l

ELECTRCfoIICS MODULE

EXHIBIT 3: GRAPHICSETTER ENGINE (ELECTRICAL INTERFACES)

- --

II"'"'

r-

I

-

-~

' t'""' r­ ~) ~ --~-_.

.... I

,t ,.,I

I

r - .J~, J

L-.J ~J\

\: -,I

I 'VI-~J­, (' I 4

t . L.­

I

...... '" I

~ --­-----~rt --

~

J ---~-,...­

-r­~

~

r-r­

,... r­

--

,... r ­~

~ ..... -~

-­I

J -----....1"r

j j -

2

EXHIBIT 6: PLANNED VS. ACTUAL FUNCTIONAL INVOLVEMENT TIMELINES

SEPT. 1986 PLAN

* PLANNED FCS.

ACTUAL OCCURRENCE

** TOOLING RAMP-UP VIRTUALLY COMPLETE FEB 1988.

***FULL VOLUME MANUFACTURING STARTS.

DESIGN

SEPT 86

I MANUFACTURING .. I

~

jADVANCED MFG. I....... ~

MAR JUNE OCT DEC* SEPT OCT APR 87 87 87 87 88 88 89

I MANUFACTURING .... . ADVANCED MANUFACTURING I

.. I •I **

DESIGN

CONCEPTI F:~BILITY

SEPT MAR OCT DECFEB JUNE SEPT OCT APR**· 86 87 87 87 88 88 H8 H8 H9

EXHIBIT 7: FUNCTIONAL AREA TASK RESPONSIBILITIES RELATING TO NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION

============:======================================~== =============

MARKETING product planning strategy target market determination installed base user satisfaction and desires market research sales forecasting product management NPI program management, schedule development and control NPI progr~ communications, meetings, minutes product commercialization, launch activities, logistics beta site selection competitor analyses business plan compilation and defense program manager reports to executives aggregate planning distribution strategy, distribution tactics and logistics product pricing advertising, promotion, literature, press releases sales force training, kick-offs demonstration and trade show activities finished goods control product enclosure appearance, packaging aesthetics

DESIGN ENGINEERING technology research and reviews system concept development and documentation module concept development and documentation concept empirical testing research with vendors external/collaborative technology reviews module breadboards and feasibility tests development and unit cost estimations resource allocation, project management capital and expense economic justifications system specification and documentation module specification and documentation module design reviews milestone demonstrations (early prototypeS) module prototype development system prototype development parts list generation system design family tree generation parts drawing generation and release assembly level parts drawings generation and release system level drawings long-lead time parts list release vendor assemblies and critical component research and selection assist in assembly of AME prototypes

Exhibit 7 continued

resolve functional (design) problems found in AXE prototypes and in advanced manufacturing build

resolve design problems found when product is in the field product enhancements and upgrades

ADVANCED MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING --> four major areas: manufacturing process development,

manufacturing process implementation, process shakeout, materials support

involvement in module design reviews aid in assembly of design engineering prototypes facilitate parts list generation develop process flow charts determine tools to be developed, purchased, modified determine resource requirements for tooling economically justify capital and other resources for

development project management interview and select consultant tool designers design tools contact and select vendors for tool parts determine and document procedures for tooling/assembly determine and document procedures for calibration/testing assemble tools order long lead time assembly hardware consider environmental/safety situations for assembly process calibration of testing equipment SPC data collection systemization and automation bar coding, serial numbering system development assembler training space allocation for manufacturing process tooling implementation and shake-out assembler selection product packaging engineering and non-functional change order management parts, assembly, system drawing archives and maintenance vendor manufacturing process selection for non-commodity parts mental group technology

---> Production Planning and Control project cost accounting reports to executives purchasing and vendor selection for non-commodity parts cost reduction activities advanced manufacturing floor plant management activities critical parts management parts information input into KRP system MRP operated, outputs communicated interface with marketing for aggregate planning

Exhibit 7 continued

MANUFACTURING assist in tooling assembly assist in manufacturing process implementation and shakeout assist in assembly and calibration procedures development assist in training assemblers develop knowledge of critical parts and modules transfer tooling to full volume site develop process flows and space allocation develop kitting procedures develop inventory policies coordinate worker team meetings quality engineering product testing unit cycle time reduction activities work with Purchasing for materials incoming inspection fine tune manufacturing process redocument assembly, calibration procedures

CUSTOMER SERVICE DIVISION (includes Field Service, others) involvement in design and manufacturing activities to ensure

design for repair, modularity field technician documentation field technician training product module spares forecasting for phased out products quality success feedback user manual documentation system packaging: media, chemicals

PROCUREMENT authorization of funds for parts, assemblies acquisition of all commodity or standardized materials vendor certification vendor history maintenance purchasing strategies, aggregation

===================================================================

EXHIBIT 8: BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PRIMARY DEVELOPMENT TEAM MEMBERS

Pete Schacht. He has a B.A. in Industrial Design (art) from Syracuse (around 1970). He joined Compugraphic one year after he left college when he found a CG ad in a Boston newspaper. He joined CG as an artist/designer for type fonts in the Type Division. He then moved to a type design supervisor position and then to a product manager position for the Type Division. He was in this division for over ten years. About 1980, Dave Costa brought him into the Output Devices group to be a program/product manager there. The first thing he worked on was a front-end based on the Apple LISA, which was disbanded when LISA was discontinued. He was program manager for these products in chronological order: 8000, 9600, 9400/Genics, and 9800.

Richard (Dick) Cashman. He was the first development head for the 9400, and was involved in initial concept and feasibility stages. He was promoted to the position of Business Chief Engineer in mid 1986, and left the project at that time. He subsequently left the company.

Ron Goulet. He was the second but primary engineering development head for the 9400. He was an electrical engineer in design for 13 years before joining Product Support and Enhancement, which he headed up through its existence. This group worked on maintaining and enhancing products already designed and in full volume manufacturing. PSE was thought to be an inefficient use of design resources and was disbanded in mid 1986. Goulet was made a senior development manager immediately. There were five or six engineers at this level in the company. His involvement in the 9400 started at the top engineering position for the project when he replaced Richard Cashman. He reports directly to the Senior VP for Engineering.

Joe Costanzo. He was the Manager of Advanced Manufacturing and was in charge of advanced manufacturing and production planning & control. He reports directly to Dick Renwick, Senior Vice President for Operations. This was the first and only job he has held since graduating from college. He went to the University of Lowell in the mid-60's and completed two years of engineering work, then moved into marketing and completed that degree. He has been involved in 27 new product ramp-ups.

Dave Crespan. He has a mechanical engineering background and has been with the company since 1971. Before and through the 9400 development, he led the advanced manufacturing engineering group, and so managed all the tool and manufacturing engineers. He also managed vendor engineering and manufacturing engineering drafting. He started in this position in 1981 with five engineers, and saw his group grow to 32. For the 9400, he personally handled the administrative side of the project--such things as budget development and defense, scheduling and control, and coordination of meetings. A tool engineering head reported directly to him. Crespan reported to Dick Renwick.

EXHIBIT 9: GANTT CHARTS OF PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT ­LONGITUDINAL VIEW

FEB. 12, 1987

ENGINEDEV. I.C.S. DEV. INTEGRATION AM.E. BUILD T.P.S. TEST BETA TEST LAUNCH AM. PRODUCTION FCS

NOV. 16, 1987

ENGINEDEV. I.C.S. DEV. INTEGRATION AM.E. BUILD T.P.S. TEST BETA TEST LAUNCH AM. PRODUCTION FCS

MAR. 17, 1988

ENGINEDEV. I.C.S. DEV. INTEGRATION AM.E. BUILD T.P.S. TEST BETA TEST LAUNCH AM. PRODUCTION FCS

1987

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LEGEND

• Actual Start "'Actual End 16 Slip

o Planned Start 6. Planned End e5 Slip

EXHIBIT 10: SUMMARY MILESTONE TIMELINE CHART--CONCEPT & FEASIBILITY

================================================================

April 85 Product strategy meetings lead to concept

July 85 GPC presentation, Graphicsetter a firm concept

Dec 85 stage 0 Review of product strategy, potential** technologies, product options

Jan 86 - Concept and Feasibility activities scheduled, resources allocated

- Design engineers phasing in from other project - Laboratory (breadboard) work starts up - Technology reviews start

March 86 Technical Update presentation

April 86 GraphicSetter Product Assumption sheet released

May 86 Writing Engine Concept Paper

June 86 - Packaging Concept Paper - Preliminary schedule, manpower and capital

budget estimates developed

July 86 Product concept presentation and review

August 86 Detailed scheduling and work breakdown started in June now completed

Sept 86 ** Jeff Elliot completes six months of market research/specification setting for business plan

- Business Plan approved, project fully sanctioned - Pete Schacht assigned Program Manager - Electrical Unit specification released

Oct 86 - Opto-Mechanical Unit specification released - System Product specification released (with

reliability and diagnostic specifications)

Nov 86 Several module specification reports released

Dec 86 - GENICS specification signed off - Several module specification reports released

{ ** major go/no-go decision point at this time }

================================================================

EXHIBIT 11: SUMMARY TIMELINE CHART--EVENTS AFTER BUSINESS PLAN APPROVAL

================================================================

Oct 86 - Writing Engine specification signed-off - unit cost estimation completed by DE and AME

Dec 86 - Genics specification signed-off - Milestone Demo I - Program Meetings started

Oct-Dec 86 all module specifications completed

Jan 86 Milestone Demo II

Jan-Mar 87 - Design Reviews conducted for modules and submodules, AME involvement - detailed drawings (X2 release) created for and released to AME procurement

March 87 piece part producability reviews started by AME

April 87 - decided that polygon optic was no good, switched to Prism optic, recognition that this will delay AME process - long lead ANR (advanced notice of parts release) list released - Marketing decides January 88 launch

Sept 87 - FCS moved to late January 88 - AME two months behind due to engine redesign and Genics S/W falling behind

Nov 87 - FCS moves to late March 88 - AME engines built, and acceptance criteria set, but cannot test without Genics - also lots of hardware and software problems

Jan 88 - FCS moved to April 88 - AME units built, but problems with

1) vibration, 2) banding, 3) BSM spot size and 4) poor output type quality at 1200 DPI

Feb 88 can't find Beta sites

March 88 - vibration solved, but BSM still a problem - still no production engines - Genics available but with many known bugs

April 88 FCS moves to August 88

Exhibit 11 continued

May 88 - type quality OK, but still working on banding spot size being dealt with via parts swapping

- a few units being produced slowly - Betas installed - Dave Crespan AME 9400 Critique - business plan review

recommendations to evaluate higher selling price - implementing cost reduction plan - transfer cost higher than expected - Engineering expense over initial estimates and

manufacturing startup also over - forecasted sales up

June 88 some AME production

August 88 - nine weekly "Readiness Reviews" started (gates) - gates "held" (shut) due to many problems

Sept 88 - August gate problems solved but more arise - Integrator (project failure) paranoia - Acceptance Review on 30th

Oct 88 - product signed off, but still a few S/W patches - actual FCS on 26th - standard product is above cost - sales price increased to $33000 to partially

compensate - TOTAL 9 MONTH SLIP.

Oct-Dec 88 - Harvey Bloom postmortem 9400 project review

Oct 88 to April 89 * AME and AM build * major cost reduction efforts and results * reduced spot introduced and other versions cut in * many customer units are produced in AM

Oct 88 to April 89 separate task forces were created and meetings were conducted to: • * develop Design for Manufacture guidelines * work on "Reduced Spot", to make the writing even finer

April 89 on regular manufacturing production and fine-tuning

Oct 88 on superior market performance relative to sales forecasts

================================================================

EXHIBIT 12: DESIGN ENGINEERING GROUP ORGANIZATION CHART

DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Dick Cashman (1)

Ron Goulet

- - 1'---- ---., [ - -GENIeS-

ENGINE (2)i

Charlie Parry Al St.Pierre

(3,4,5) OPTO­I ENGINE MECHANICS

SOFfWARE Dave Larsen (4,6) Section Manager

ELECTRICAL Rob Herring (3)

Mark Barrett Section Manager

ELECfRICAL SOFfWARE

t- RICH DAVENPORT DiagnosticsI- BILL MATSEAS I- GLEN

Power Supply I CABANA PCBs t- JERRY

BUSCO

(l) Caslunan promoted to BCE 6/86, replaced by Ron Goulet.

(2) Karen Duffey, Tom Hebert and others did drafting, drawing, tolerance studies and specification writing.

(3) Electrical section reorganized 6/86, Barrett replaces Herring, Herring goes to dedicated GENICS group.

(4) Reported straight line to Cashman, then straight line to St. Pierre and dotted line to Goulet.

(5) St. Pierre was senior BCE for input devices when Cashman was promoted. Parry left GENICS.

(6) Refers to Diagnostics, Finnware/ ROM.

(7) Okoornian retired 12/87, replaced by Schatzberg.

NOTE: There is disagreement in the organization over who GENICS staff reported to after Cashman was promoted.

t- JACK McGRATH Opto-Mechanical Engineer

~ JOHN WILLIAMS~ PHIL ROMBULT Motor ControlIer Mechanical Engineer

Photo-Imaging Specialist '- CARL

ROBERTS~ SUE OBENDORF Engine ControlIer Mechanical

Engineer ~ WOODBURY

f-HOWARD OKooMIAN (8) LEAH SCHATZBERG ~ KAREN Optical Engineering I BOUDREAU

'- HENRY KELLY Lens Designer

'- A Number ofOther engineers and Technicians

L... technicians.

EXHIBIT 13: OPERATIONS ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE

SR. VP FOR OPERATIONS Dick Renwick

ADVANCED MFG. ENGINEERING

MANAGER Dave Crespan

PRODUCTION PLANNING AND CONTROL MGR.

Joe Costanzo

PURCHASING MANAGER John Hurley

HAVERHILL PLANT

MANAGER :1

GROUP PLANT MANAGER

Dick Ramsden

UNIT 80 PLANT MANAGER Dick Carville

EXHIBIT 14: OPERATIONS INDIVIDUALS DEDICATED TO THE 9400

SR. VP FOR OPERAnONS Dick Renwick

I I

ADVANCED MANUFCATURING

ENGINEERING Dave Crespan

I

MFGffEST ENGINEERING

LEADER Bob Gillin (2) Bill Ceccherini

I- RON FORBES Sr. Test Engineer

~cian

CONTINUOUS ENGINEERING

1 VENDOR

ENGINEERING

VENDOR ENGINEERING John Kermedy (8)

PACKAGING ENGINEER

I

t- BILL CECCHERINI Sr. Test Engineer

I

I- JOEONDRE Electrical Test Engineer

I- AL MOTI Tooling Engineer

Others (3.4,5,7)

I-Paul Comeau (6)

L Ed Comeau (6)

(1) Brooks replaced Maddox in later stages of ramp-up.

(2) Gillin was head through June. 1987.

(3) In addition to the Manufacturing Engineering Leader, the group had 4 mechanical engineers, 4 electrical engineers, 4 manufacturing engineering technicians, and 2 manufacturing engineers from UNIT 80 (including Bill Cook) in the end stages of the 9400 project ramp-up.

(4) Also. an optical consultant (Maurice Damast) and various tool designers were brought in (such as Bob Flanagan).

(5) A quality engineer (Bob Foss) also worked with the group.

I PRODUCTION

PLANNING AND CONTROL HEAD

Joe Costanzo

1 r

PRODUCTION CONTROL

SUPERVISOR Diane Barrell (8.9)

I 9400

INVENTORY ANALYST

Cindy Maddox (I) Jim Brooks

ADVANCED MFG. PLANT MANAGER Elaine Therriault (8)

ASSISTANT PLANTMNGR

I GROUP

LEADERS

(6) Paul Comeau was dedicated to the 9400. Ed Comeau was part-time.

(7) Note that an advanced manufacturing and test engineering group for PCB

Manufacture that worked on the 9400 was resident at Haverhill.

(8) While a few specific people in this group were dedicated to the 9400 project,

this group was generally seen as a "service" that supported many projects at once.

(9) Several people from Purchasing worked on the 9400. Ned Mackey was

dedicated to the project. Barbara Flammia and Murray White were part-time.

,

I

APPENDIX 1: Electronic Pre-Press System Description

Electronic Pre-Press (EPP) comprises all steps and equipment encountered before the actual act of printing multiple final copy at some higher volume. The major stages are:

1) INPUT AND MANIPULATION 2) "INTERPRETER" 3) OUTPUT DEVICES 4) MEDIA DEVELOPMENT AND PLATE PREPARATION

Only after completing all or most of these stages can the actual final printing (stage 5) be done. Compugraphic produces software and hardware units and systems to support all electronic pre-press activities.

1) INPUT AND MANIPULATION

Scanner devices may be used to digitize existing photographs, text and/or line art (anything that is indeed graphics but not available in alternative digital form). Then input and manipulation [author's term] devices such as Macintoshes and other personal computers of all types, special graphics workstations (including those produced by CG) and proprietary equipment are used to input, create and modify text and graphics. Very common software packages such as MacDraw or Ventura Publisher may be used to develop desired text and graphics. These graphical elements are described via various graphical primitives standards. Adobe's PostScript is the ~ facto industry standard for description of graphics. CG also has a proprietary graphical primitives protocal standard.

Input and manipulation devices are software and hardware intensive. A basic device would be a computer with monitor.

2) "INTERPRETER"

Once text and graphics exist in digital form, they must be "interpreted" {my term} for printing purposes. Essentially, the text/graphics which are described via some type of graphical primitives (language), must be re-described (via a new language) in a manner that output devices will understand what to print or draw. The text and pictures are translated into streams of bits which direct where dots should be placed on the respective output media. This process of converting graphics to bit streams is called "rasterization", and equipment that perform this function are "rasterizers" or more specifically, "Raster Image Processors" (RIPs). Image Control Systems (ICS), as CG calls them, and RIPs are synonymous. CG developed in cooperation with Adobe a PostScript interpreter for use with CG output devices. In addition, CG developed its own interpreter for use with its proprietary input devices. This interpreter is the GENICS, called that because it is the Generic Image Control System. The GENICS was developed at CG in parallel with and as a subset of the output device CG9400.

Interpreter devices are software intensive. They are very much like self­contained personal computers without monitors.

1

3) OUTPUT DEVICES

These devices accept the bit stream from a RIP and "write" via light source (such as CRT or laser) or heat onto various types of media. The output may be placed on plain paper, as in common laser-printers. These output devices typically have resolution of 300 dots-per-inch (DPI), and occassionally 400 DPI. One would choose to simply output to plain paper for low-cost proofing purposes, or for printing applications that do not require particularly high quality, such as for informal company brochures.

Certain output devices (such as CGls 9400) write on photographic media (film), which must then be treated before actual printing is possible. These devices are capable of higher resolutions--the CG9400 writes at 1200 and 2400 DPI. Finally, variations on this type of output device write directly onto printing plates, and so require no more or very limited processing before actual printing is undertaken. The CG 9600 is of this type. It is significantly more expensive than the 9400,· and is generally meant for highest quality and high­volume operations. Recall that each intermediate step in the processing of some graphical piece reduces the quality of the final output (this is like photocopying a picture several times).

CG marketing strives to differentiate laser writing devices. The lower resolution plain paper printers are often called laser printers and laser­writers. In contrast, the CG 9400 and CG 9600 are called "image setters", "graphic setters" and "laser image setters".

Output devices can look and act like traditional computer system laser printers, larger photocopy machines or enclosed, boxy minicomputer units.

4) MEDIA DEVELOPMENT AND PLATE PREPARATION

Photographic media must be developed via darkroom-style techniques and equipment. Once developed media is in hand, printing plates may be "burned". These printing plates are then used in printing presses.

5) PRINTING

Once printing plates are available, they are attached to printing presses for production of high volumes of print output.

2

APPENDIX 2: Graphicsetter Specifications

The 9400 originally was planned to be (and when completed was) capable of photographic media output at 5 inches per minute at ~200 CPI and 2.5 inches per minute at 2400 CPl. CPI means dots per inch, and refers to the sharpness of lines placed on the media. This CPI measure is often called "resolution" but in technical terms is not. The more appropriate technical term is "addressability" because this better refers to the software capabilities associated with a certain CPl. For example, 2400 CPI graphics can be printed on a 300 CPI machine, resulting in output at only 300 CPl.

PUblishing terminology states media output speed specifications as "Maximum Imaging Speed" in square inches per minute. The maximum imaging speeds for the 9400 are at 66.5 square inches per minute for 1200 CPI, and at 33.25 for 2400 CPl. The media width is of constant size, and so writing output may be up to 78 picas (13.3 inches) wide. Several media widths up to 13.3 inches are usable.

The 9400's output media is infrared-sensitive and is coupled with the laser-diode system. The "spot size" is the diameter of the write laser beam and denotes how fine the writing is. The 9400's spot size is 20 microns (20 millionths of an inch, or 0.00002 inches). This is the "reduced spot" width that was implemented after the design stage. The original spot size was 30 microns. Spot size is important in that it determines the fineness of a line placed on media. Smaller spot sizes facilitate smoother curves. Spot size is also called "window size." Smaller spot sizes difficult to produce and so usually more expensive. Also, in some cases the customer does not need, and cannot even identify, finer cases of spot sizes. In the final product testing procedures CG looks for clarity and resolution at levels higher than customers can discern.

The "repeatability", which is the variance in location of the placement of a specifically addressed dot on a number of (in this case four) pages, averages 6 mil (0.006 inches) and has a maximum of 9 mil. Repeatability is important for color applications, where four frames of media are required to print the required color graphics. High repeatability (measured by a small repeatability variance number) means that the frames will "line up" much better.

The environmental "requirements" are that the machines be operated in 65 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit environments, with relative humidities in the range of 35 to 80 \. The quality of output varies greatly with environment. This issue has been considered in design of later products, where environmental stabilization is built into the machines (an air conditioning system is installed to maintain a constant temperature and humidity).

The 9400 Writing Engine weighs 300 pounds, and has width-height-depth of 29"-22"-36". The GENICS RIP unit is separate, weighs 40 pounds, and has width­height-depth of 22"-6"-17".

To compare, the 9600 Writing Engine weighs 550 pounds, has the same output width, but has double the output speed for respective CPI resolution levels. The 9600 is quite different in that it uses a helium-neon laser with hologon optical system and associated red-sensitive media. While the spot size is same, the repeatability is better and is at 4 mil average and 6 mil maximum. The primary functional difference of the 9600 is that it allows direct imaging onto printing plates and high (double speed) media throughput.

1

The GENICS RIP unit has an Intel 80386 CPU chip, a Texas Instruments 34010 coprocessor, 6 mega-bytes (MB) of RAM memory and as standard 40 mega-bytes hard disk storage. It uses the UNIX operating system, has three input interfaces and two output interfaces.

The PostScript RIP was not developed in parallel with the 9400. For completeness, a few of its specifications are listed. It is based on a Motorola 68020 CPU with Motorola 68881 coprocessor. It has a 6 MB RAM, 80 MB hard disk and a number of interfaces.

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