Manufacturing – R&D Product Development

This example will explain how to use the Product development template you can find in Teamhood. This template was created by taking the best practices from our clients and is aimed mostly at R&D processes. However, you can use the same approach for other business sectors just as well.

The workspace is divided into 3 boards – Plant or Unit Type A, Plant or Unit Type B and Administrative Tasks. This is done to help separate different processes you might have for different types of products, as well as to separate the distinct process that is usually set for administrative tasks. Let’s take a look at these boards in more detail.

Plant or Unit Type A/B

The first 2 boards you will find in this workspace are identical. However, they are not intended to stay that way. Each of them is meant to represent a different type of process you may have for different plants or products. If your process is the same for everything, you can consider using them to differentiate locations or teams. This way separating different initiatives and reporting on them.

Each of these boards is separated into rows and statuses.

Rows

To get you started, there are 2 rows already found on both boards. where they represent different products. It is very convenient to give each product an individual row, especially when there are 10 or more tasks to be completed. This way, they are clearly separated and navigation of the board is much easier.

Statuses

In Teamhood, statuses are used to track the progress of your tasks. It gives you a better idea of the progress on each item while it is being worked on. The statuses defined in these boards are divided into 6 status groups:

1. To Do – to hold all of the plans and priorities. This is where you input new ideas and where you take on new work from.
   • Backlog
   • Prioritized
2. Work In Progress – to visualize your process. Statuses can be changed depending on how your team works.
   • Concept
   • 2D Design
   • 3D Design
   • DFMEA
3. Missing – to hold any items that cannot move forward due to missing information, resources, etc.
   • Inform what is missing
4. Prototypes – to signal that the prototype was made and is ready for the next step.
   • Prototype ready
5. QA – to indicate that the item is passing the quality assurance step.
   • Validation
6. Output– to hold items that were already completed.
   • Completed items

The composition for this board can and should be changed according to your own process. You can add additional process steps, divide them into more specific sub-steps, or delete the statuses that are not necessary for your team. To do so, simply locate the ‘Edit Board’ button at the top right corner of your board.

Administrative Tasks

The third board you will find in this template is designed to hold your administrative tasks. Since they do not require the same complicated process teams use for manufacturing, it is much more convenient to hold them on a separate board. Rows and statuses are also used here to order the tasks in a convenient way.

Rows

On this board, rows are used to separate items into high and normal priority. This helps the team in knowing if there is any urgent work that should be completed as soon as possible. If this row is empty, the team can go on with their usual plans.

Statuses

The administrative tasks board has 3 statuses to track the progress of items – To Do, Doing, and Done. Which helps team members in knowing if the tasks have been started and completed. If you wish to add more, click ‘Edit Board’.

Tags

To further categorize items in your boards, we suggest using Tags. This is a powerful way to create an additional layer of item sorting. Use Tags to identify clients, teams, locations, machinery or any other important information.

You can then filter Teamhood views and reports by tags. Thus, giving you more insight into the data.

On-Time Delivery

To ensure on-time delivery, set item due dates, effort estimations, and track time. The first two will give your team an overall idea of how long work will take and the tracked time will allow you to compare estimations to the real expenditure.

In the Time Sheet view, you will be able to see how ahead or behind each product is and thus make more reliable estimations for future production.

Workload Management

Workload view is automatically added to your workspace. Here you can check the workload for the team members, boards, and machinery (tags). By default, the Workload view reflects items in all boards included in your workspace, however, you can use the filtering options to select which information is shown.

If you wish to see the workload grouped by boards or tags, open the customization menu and select the right option in the ‘Group By section.

Performance Metrics

To analyze your progress further, take advantage of the built-in Performance metrics. Here, you can check various insights into your process. You may see that many tasks are started, but then get stuck, identify which items are blocked, or check what is the average time to complete an order.

Lead time (time to complete) gives you average data for how long it takes the team to complete their items. Which is useful for future estimations and understanding performance.

Cycle time (age in progress) provides you with an in-depth look into how long it takes your team to complete items. Data here is provided in 3 percentiles – 70th, 80th, and 95th. Allowing to evaluate both – the more common and extreme cases.

Items completed on time highlights how many of your items were completed on or before the due date.

New vs completed items allows you to evaluate the number of new and completed items over the current and the last 3 months.

Learn about the rest of performance metrics in our knowledge base or watch this video explanation below.