Agile in Hardware and Extreme Manufacturing

While the roots of agile are in software, these techniques apply to development of diverse products and services including hardware, media, and content. Agile has been used in manufacturing operations as well especially where innovation and quick turn-around are critical to gain a pioneering position or to remain competitive. Today, these techniques are used in producing cars and wine and many things in between with order of magnitude improvement in effectiveness, efficiency, and happiness. This course addresses the use of agile and lean methods in products that involve hardware elements including electronics, electrical, and mechanical components. The use of design patterns and KSI (Known Stable Interfaces) for enabling agility will be discussed. We will explore eXtreme Manufacturing (XM) that is an iterative framework for manufacturing and product development. XM is based on the systematic elimination of waste and production scheduling with tighter integration with or in-housing of feeders including suppliers and vendors. The course also addresses how to incorporate user stories, simplify design, develop and motivate self-organizing teams, shorten test cycles and ensure a renewed focus on people and culture to improve flexibility, fuel innovation and drive business results.