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Sean Osborne sosborne@cooperstandard (248)-495-1326 Director, R&D and Advanced Engineering

Managing the Product Development Funnel at CSA Make More and Better Product Decisions for Greater Impact. Sean Osborne sosborne@cooperstandard.com (248)-495-1326 Director, R&D and Advanced Engineering Cooper Standard Automotive – Global Fluid Systems Division. Company Description :

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Sean Osborne sosborne@cooperstandard (248)-495-1326 Director, R&D and Advanced Engineering

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  1. Managing the Product Development Funnel at CSA Make More and Better Product Decisions for Greater Impact Sean Osborne sosborne@cooperstandard.com (248)-495-1326 Director, R&D and Advanced Engineering Cooper Standard Automotive – Global Fluid Systems Division

  2. Company Description: Cooper Standard Automotive - Global Fluid Systems “Driving Value through Innovation” Innovations are solicited with the “Innovation Quest” Idea Generation Program. All new product projects are approved by the executive staff at gate reviews. The Fluid Systems Division has organized to ring fence new product development resources. Unique Requirements for Product Innovation: Managing the product development funnel: At CSA global fluid systems we manage the process to achieve results. We use a funnel concept to measure and ensure the health of our process. The funnel concept leads to two basic questions. 1) Are you separating the wheat from the chaff? 2) Are your products moving toward launches? The funnel also underscores one of the most strategic decisions. What projects should be stopped or killed? The front end of the funnel should be full of ideas. Cooper Standard AutomotiveSean Osborne

  3. Illustration of Your Stage-Gate Process: The Product Innovation Process - “A Decision Factory” An “Innovation Quest” Idea Generation Program is used to solicit innovations from 8000 employees. Project Reviews are used to improve project execution. Semi-annual portfolio reviews are held to take a holistic view of new product projects and confirm resource application to projects by priority. Decisions are made throughout the Stage-Gate process to choose the right projects and do projects right. Unique Customization of Stage-Gate: Creating impact with an integrated product development process. We get our products right by better understanding the customer’s voice, creating concepts with unrivalled customer value and meeting our cost and timing targets. This is an additional integrated element, called Design for Six Sigma, used by practitioners. We choose the right projects by first defining and selecting attractive market segments. We decide which projects will have the most impact and continually ask tough questions at gate reviews to determine whether we should proceed or kill projects. The funnel tool measures whether the Stage Gate and other processes are being effectively used to commercialize products. The funnel concept leads us to make more decisions to keep the process productive. Managing the process flow funnel results in higher throughput and reduced cycle time. Focusing concentrates resources and helps improve the quality of decisions and quality of execution. In other words, we spend more time and effort on more important projects. We have limited resources and are very careful not to overload our resources with too many projects. A key resultant of focusing on fewer projects is launching more products. With more products launched and less Work-In-Process, our process cycle time dropped from 7.5 years to about 2 years. Cooper Standard AutomotiveSean Osborne

  4. Lessons Learned: Making more & better decisions creates impact. You can’t force success by simply forcing the launch of more new products or demanding shorter development time. Don’t get lost in the details about what best practices are. Concentrate leadership efforts on what best practices do. Management must make choices and focus. Make sure your new product development process is leading to decisions to weed out less successful projects. Celebrate your kills. Support your new product teams by making as many high quality strategic decisions as possible. Help the new product teams make tactical decisions which will improve project execution. Implementation Team: The team involved the following primary members: - New product process leader - Marketing director - R&D director Critical to the team’s success was/is support from the President. Participation of the gatekeepers and practitioners is necessary to evolve the processes to fit the culture. Cooper Standard AutomotiveSean Osborne Results: • Higher Sales (8x in 4 yrs) • Higher Margins • More Launches • Faster Launches

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