The Lean Startup - Eric Ries [78]
The essential lesson is not that everyone should be shipping fifty times per day but that by reducing batch size, we can get through the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop more quickly than our competitors can. The ability to learn faster from customers is the essential competitive advantage that startups must possess.
SMALL BATCHES IN ACTION
To see this process in action, let me introduce you to a company in Boise, Idaho, called SGW Designworks. SGW’s specialty is rapid production techniques for physical products. Many of its clients are startups.
SGW Designworks was engaged by a client who had been asked by a military customer to build a complex field x-ray system to detect explosives and other destructive devices at border crossings and in war zones.
Conceptually, the system consisted of an advanced head unit that read x-ray film, multiple x-ray film panels, and the framework to hold the panels while the film was being exposed. The client already had the technology for the x-ray panels and the head unit, but to make the product work in rugged military settings, SGW needed to design and deliver the supporting structure that would make the technology usable in the field. The framework had to be stable to ensure a quality x-ray image, durable enough for use in a war zone, easy to deploy with minimal training, and small enough to collapse into a backpack.
This is precisely the kind of product we are accustomed to thinking takes months or years to develop, yet new techniques are shrinking that time line. SGW immediately began to generate the visual prototypes by using 3D computer-aided design (CAD) software. The 3D models served as a rapid communication tool between the client and the SGW team to make early design decisions.
The team and client settled on a design that used an advanced locking hinge to provide the collapsibility required without compromising stability. The design also integrated a suction cup/pump mechanism to allow for fast, repeatable attachment to the x-ray panels. Sounds complicated, right?
Three days later, the SGW team delivered the first physical prototypes to the client. The prototypes were machined out of aluminum directly from the 3D model, using a technique called computer numerical control (CNC) and were hand assembled by the SGW team.
The client immediately took the prototypes to its military contact for review. The general concept was accepted with a number of minor design modifications. In the next five days, another full cycle of design iteration, prototyping, and design review was completed by the client and SGW. The first production run of forty completed units was ready for delivery three and a half weeks after the initiation of the development project.
SGW realized that this was a winning model because feedback on design decisions was nearly instantaneous. The team used the same process to design and deliver eight products, serving a wide range of functions, in a twelve-month period. Half of those products are generating revenue today, and the rest are awaiting initial orders, all thanks to the power of working in small batches.
THE PROJECT TIME LINE
Design and engineering of the initial virtual prototype 1 day
Production and assembly of initial hard prototypes 3 days
Design iteration: two additional cycles 5 days
Initial production run and assembly of initial forty units 15 days
Small Batches in Education
Not every type of product—as it exists today—allows for design change in small batches. But that is no excuse for sticking to outdated methods. A significant amount of work may be needed to enable innovators to experiment in