New Product R&D and Manufacturing Project (incl. JSON Template)

Characteristics of Manufacturing and R&D Projects

Projects in the manufacturing sector that develop and mass-produce smartphones, auto parts, and home appliances must overcome two massive hurdles: 'physical material supply' and 'strict quality testing'. Unlike software, once a mold is created and parts are stamped, modification costs become astronomical, so enormous time and resources are invested in preliminary design and prototyping validation phases.

Characteristics of the Manufacturing and Production Industry

Manufacturing projects (electronic products, automobiles, machinery, etc.) strictly combine hardware R&D, mold manufacturing, and mass production processes. Unlike software, modifying the design mid-way requires discarding physical materials and molds, incurring immense costs. Therefore, a rigid Phase-Gate model is applied, where the next phase cannot proceed unless the current phase perfectly passes the verification (Gate).

Also, Lead Time management of the supply chain (SCM) is critical. If a key component ordered from overseas takes 4 weeks to arrive, the assembly schedule must be delayed by that amount. Therefore, predicting the critical path considering the material delivery period is the core of manufacturing project management.

Features of Manufacturing WBS Structure

The WBS of a general hardware manufacturing project is designed as follows:

• R&D and Design: Industrial design, mechanical design (3D CAD), and electronic circuit (PCB) design are carried out.
• Prototyping & Verification: Create Mock-ups using 3D printers and conduct reliability tests (drop test, thermal test, etc.). EVT (Engineering Verification Test) and DVT (Design Verification Test) take place here.
• Mold Production & Trial Injection: Order steel molds for mass production. Mold production has the longest Lead Time (often taking several months), making it a major critical path.
• Mass Production (MP) & QC: Begin full-scale factory production, conduct Quality Control (QC), and pack and ship products.

Resource and Progress Management using Rudia Gantt

If the 'Mold Production' schedule is delayed by 2 weeks, the Project Manager can check Rudia Online Gantt to instantly see that the final product release milestone will also be delayed by 2 weeks. Furthermore, by utilizing the Actual Progress vs. Planned Progress comparison feature, you can quantitatively track whether the mass production line's daily output is meeting the target.

By entering exact component delivery schedules and assembly times, and connecting them with Finish-to-Start (FS) dependencies, Rudia Gantt automatically calculates the optimal mass production start date. This is an indispensable tool for manufacturing managers striving to reduce time-to-market.