The challenges and opportunities of a product line renewal within low voltage switches
Sjöwall, Martin Peter Christoffer (2020-10-22)
22.10.2020
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2020102387572
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2020102387572
Tiivistelmä
This thesis explores the challenges and opportunities of a product line renewal within low voltage switches. Based on the discoveries, strategic action plans for five business functions are created, along with a roadmap for the project’s activities. The methods used to discover the challenges and opportunities are a vast literature review and interviews with experts from three companies. The literature review includes studies related to product line renewals and new product launches, but excludes studies where the examined product type is vastly different from switches. A numerical design structure matrix (NDSM) is used to create an optimal order of the renewal project’s activities, where the dependency between activities and the risk of rework is minimized. A system dynamics simulation inspects the change in the combined profitability of the new and old product, when the old product’s market elimination time is reduced from 36 months to 24 months. The simulation showed that a shorter elimination time results in an increased profitability.
Each action plan contains information on what the business function’s key objectives are. The action plans are designed so that they complement each other and ensure that each function is striving for the same goals. One of the key objectives for every business function is to enable a quick elimination of the old product, since it was found that the elimination process is often challenging and that a slow elimination tends to decrease the profitability. The created action plans include an optimized roadmap for the project, based on the NDSM analysis, which reduces the downtimes and the risk of rework between project steps. Therefore, the action plans can result in cost savings by both speeding up the renewal project and by reducing the elimination time of the old product.
Switches have a very long lifecycle, where the time between two generations’ launches can be over 20 years. Very little research has been done on the optimal product line renewal strategies for products with very long lifecycles, so further research on this thesis’ topic could compare how the optimal renewal strategy varies between products with an average lifecycle and ones with very long lifecycles.
This thesis inspects a specific product line renewal, meaning that the obtained results are intended specifically for the project in question. However, only a small amount of the explored issues are exclusively relevant to switches, so the results of this thesis may also be used as a template for future product line renewals.
Each action plan contains information on what the business function’s key objectives are. The action plans are designed so that they complement each other and ensure that each function is striving for the same goals. One of the key objectives for every business function is to enable a quick elimination of the old product, since it was found that the elimination process is often challenging and that a slow elimination tends to decrease the profitability. The created action plans include an optimized roadmap for the project, based on the NDSM analysis, which reduces the downtimes and the risk of rework between project steps. Therefore, the action plans can result in cost savings by both speeding up the renewal project and by reducing the elimination time of the old product.
Switches have a very long lifecycle, where the time between two generations’ launches can be over 20 years. Very little research has been done on the optimal product line renewal strategies for products with very long lifecycles, so further research on this thesis’ topic could compare how the optimal renewal strategy varies between products with an average lifecycle and ones with very long lifecycles.
This thesis inspects a specific product line renewal, meaning that the obtained results are intended specifically for the project in question. However, only a small amount of the explored issues are exclusively relevant to switches, so the results of this thesis may also be used as a template for future product line renewals.