ND is a major cylindrical lock product in Schlage commercial portfolio which offers a variety of functions. Among them is a ND offering that can accommodate a competitor Cylinder. This product claims its importance in a situation where a customer wants to replace the existing lock with a Schlage lock while retaining his old key system. Customer complaints surrounding installation difficulties, misalignment and interference of components resulted in the discontinuation of this function. A root cause analysis performed on the failure, along with application of a VAVE approach not only gave us a robust design that addresses all the concerns but also allowed us to arrive at a cost effective design thus, efficiently bringing the product back to the market. Pre-Workshop Activity: An analysis of warranty returns was conducted and the project was identified. Team was formed and high level objectives were set Information Phase: The necessary information (such as product information, quality information and cost information) were gathered pertaining to the project. The teardown and benchmarking design tools were effectively utilized to gather necessary information on the competitor products and ensure that our product exceeds the market expectations. Function Analysis Phase: The functional analysis phase helped us to identify the functions of the component, sub-assembly and assembly level in the form of verb and noun. FAST diagram was plotted on the basis of the functional analysis. The Function-Cost Analysis aided us to identify the important top spending function and subsequently a worth of each function within the product was discussed with the team. Creativity Phase: Numerous concepts were generated from the Brainstorming sessions conducted on top functions finalized from Function-cost worth analysis. Evaluation Phase: All the short listed ideas were filtered through Idea Feasibility Ranking matrix. The final concept was selected based on the rating of each concept against weighted criteria evaluation. Development Phase: The engineering analysis (tolerance analysis, DFMEA etc.) was completed; Prototype Testing was also carried out. Presentation Phase: The detailed report was prepared and design review was conducted with cross functional team. Received approval from stake holders to proceed. Post Workshop (Documentation & Implementation): Production validation Testing and all necessary documentation (PPAP, Mfg. readiness, First Article Inspection etc.) were completed. The Function cost was updated. Conclusion - Root Cause Analysis combined with the Value Engineering methodology is a powerful tool for resolving system failures and improve the functionality of any process or product.
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