Assessments help organizations avert risk

The EAC Product Development Academy can help you advance your career, improve department performance, and transform the way you design your products. Our training options (shown below) can turn a great designer or administrator into an expert!

1. Take Our On-Site or In-Center Courses

Our Certified Instructors can come to you, or your students can come to us. We’re flexible! Let us sweat the small stuff. Our training coordinators will arrange for all the necessary tools including laptops, course material(s), and software.

2. Sign Up for eLearning

Are you a self-starter that prefers online training on your time? eLearning® a solution from PTC might be perfect for you. Students can access full course material on PTC’s subscription based learning management system. Every subscription includes up to 6,000 hours of customizable self-paced training content, including training exercises and skill checks. It is a great option for customers to track the progress of their employees as they go through onboarding or training.

3. Remote Learning with EACLive!

EACLive! is EAC’s proprietary remote learning offering. It allows students to reduce travel expenses and still satisfy their training needs. Students access classes remotely and maintain the classroom experience through desktop sharing and two-way communication with instructors and other students. It is available for both our public training classes and private sessions for your company.

4. Mentoring

We also offer this unique training option. Students can also choose to mentor with one of our Certified Instructors. This allows students to address specific topics in which assistance is needed and develop specific skill sets in the context of their job.

5. Configured or Customized Training

If you feel like “out-of-the-box training” doesn’t quite fit your needs you can utilize the EAC Training Department to help create a unique training path. We will work with you to accommodate your time and knowledge through configured or customized training.

Configured Training allows the student to subtract or add modules from an out-of-the-box certified PTC Academic Program Course; combining or shortening current curriculum.

This training type gives the student access to:

• Add and Subtract Module(s) from a Course
• Access Customized Printed Training Manual

Customized Training allows the student to build their own training course specific to their needs and their environment.

This training type gives the student access to:

• Add and Subtract Module(s) from Course
• Custom Course Content Development
• Custom Training Delivery
• Custom Documentation
• Integrate Images from Customer Environment
• Recorded Training Videos

When is PDSA season?
We all know when it’s cold and flu season and what precautions to take to get back to health or at least dial down the symptoms. However, do we recognize when it’s time to conduct a Product Development System Assessment (PDSA) to get our organization back to health?

To analogize a real life situation, if someone is sick and goes to the doctor, the doctor would want to treat the immediate sickness and then propose a physical to determine what else is going on within the patient’s body. The doctor then sets a diagnosis for continuous improvement of health. A PDSA lends itself to something close to this from a product development standpoint.

An organization must first acknowledge a problem from a department stakeholder (i.e: Vice President, Director, Manager). They must obtain an understanding of how this problem effects downstream departments and create a sense of urgency that this one problem, is only one problem, and more problems are likely to be a major inhibitor to reaching goals.

Sure, organizations can operate with these inefficiencies and still make products, but we want them to know that they could make even more products or run more projects by taking part in a PDSA, which is when we come in to align an organization’s goals and measure achievement recognition through a secure and obtainable continuous improvement plan. PDSA’s are our way of measuring an organizations pain in their processes and providing a long-term solution to provide continuous improvement and maintain a healthy organization.

PDSA’s are the only way for EAC to truly understand the heartbeat of a company and the only way a customer or prospect can become a partner. Their goals become our goals for that organization.

Why would you want a PDSA?

PDSA’s are valuable for two reasons. First we, EAC, help clients to see their product development operation as a system which is a critical first step in making the operation better (i.e. more systematic).  Secondly, we provide, as the output of the assessment, a set of high leverage improvement initiatives that will directly lead to increased productivity of their product development system.

Organizations may know something is not right with their product development operation – maybe for instance due to the number of recurring fires they fight – but they don’t know where to focus their improvement initiatives until they learn to see their operation as a system as opposed to a process.

The PDSA aligns a company’s business strategies and objectives to product development initiatives to determine areas of improvement. This is so valuable to be able to motivate a company or the internal champion to see how an improvement to a product development system would be tied to or contribute to a portion of the company’s objectives.

For example, an organizations objective or value opportunity is to reduce product development cost. Then we would streamline the product development system by making sure the people, process, and technology within a product development process are all working together without disrupting another part of the product development process thus taking waste out of the system enables reduction in cost.

During a PDSA, we engage with multifunctional groups within a company to extract process information and where waste is.  Over and above that, a continuous improvement strategy will be set in place for the company to achieve the desired state or desired maturity level. Without an investment in continuous improvement, a one-time fix to a process or system will not sustain in the long term.

What’s so great about PDSA’s?

PDSA’s are learning events and EAC consultants learn something new with every PDSA because of the uniqueness of each client we work with. Beyond spreading our understanding of seeing operations as systems, it is exciting to be able to learn the details of the client’s operations and then provide critical improvement information.

The ability to tell an internal champion or the economic buyer that their organization is “leaking oil” or specifically being able to quantify to them the dollars being wasted, and that we, EAC are here to help reduce that and get them in a better state excites me. The ability to whiteboard the organizations processes and ask them why they would perform a certain task in that fashion. The ability to ask the tough questions, like “what is the biggest headache or challenge they have right now?” and “what is working well for you?” The ability to help the champion to present to their executive board is what is rewarding in the end.

We live and breathe to make a difference for our customers. PDSA’s are a mental marathon that test every part of a person’s attention to detail, savvy, note taking, and overall listening abilities. The challenge is what we get revved up for. We never know what we are going to find.

EAC Product Development Solutions (EAC) is proud supporter of STEM education and fostering the development of future engineers. This is why we are excited to announce a partnership with the Lakeville South High School (LSHS) STEM Academy.

The STEM Academy at Lakeville South High School began as a pilot program during the 2013-14 school year. At the time, it had two sections of Engineering Your Future 1. Today it has six sections of Engineering Your Future 1, four sections of Engineering Your Future 2, and one section of Engineering Your Future 3. The demand for these courses has risen significantly in such a short amount of time. Furthermore, 50 of the 200 students in the STEM Academy are young women.

The goal of the STEM Academy is to prepare students for STEM careers, whether they head straight into the workforce, enroll in a technical college, or pursue a four-year college degree. Lakeville Area Public Schools have recognized the ncreased demand for STEM careers, in turn increasing the demand for STEM classes. STEM jobs are growing faster than jobs overall in Minnesota, more than twice as fast as all industries in Minnesota according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

EAC offers many products and services to help companies improve the way they design, manufacture, connect to, and service their products. One of the ways we do this is through the sale of the product development software toolsets created by PTC and ANSYS. EAC has pledged to donate 1% of all engineering software and support sold in MN to the LSHS. We will also make an equipment donation to the STEM Academy valued over $20,000. The school will receive a Bridgeport CNC Mill and a 3D Systems Printer.

EAC’s donation will supplement funds for supplies and equipment coming in 2016-17 that voters approved in their levy referendum in November of 2015. This includes programming at the elementary, middle school, and high school levels.

“The pieces of equipment are instrumental to state-of-the-art STEM education. Given the expense, such purchase might not be possible without the generosity of partners such as EAC,” said Justin Just, STEM teacher at Lakeville South High School.

Jacob Stewart, Senior at Lakeville South High School said throughout his four years in the STEM Academy the biggest things he has learned were “being able to work in groups and [thinking] outside the box. There’s no one right way [to solve a problem]. Failing is a big part of improving and learning.”

Stewart plans on studying engineering next fall at Iowa State University. The opportunity of working with and learning from state-of-the-art equipment may have given Stewart and his classmates a competitive advantage over their peers.

Another LSHS Senior, Will Duncan said the experience of building 3D printers has opened up future career possibilities that he might not have considered. “My dream job is to make prosthetics for people who don’t have the technology or resources to make limbs. 3D printing or other efficient technology could make that a possibility.”

In an effort to expand the awareness and success of this program EAC also plans to create a mechanism for their customers to donate additional funds and support to the program by “opting in” when placing an order.

“I want to be intentional in our efforts to support local students and schools. Some people say STEM is big right now. I say it is big for our future. Today’s students are doing amazing things. They have amazing ideas. And the staff at LSHS is doing a fantastic job preparing these students to impact the engineering and product development world. I’m proud of this program. Not only does it support a great school and great students; it also reflects EAC’s dedication to its customers. Not only do we want to provide great product development technology and services. We also want to make sure that local companies will be able to recruit talented individuals in the near future and for years to come,” said Thane Hathaway, President & CEO, EAC Product Development Solutions

Program Details:

• This is a new program EAC is launching in MN
• EAC pledges to donate 1% of Engineering Software and Support sold in MN during 2016
  • Minimum 2016 cash donation of $5000
• $20,000 hardware donation
  • Bridgeport CNC Mill
  • 3DSystems Printer
• In addition to a minimum cash donation and percentage of sales, EAC will provide a mechanism for customers to donate directly by “opting in” when placing an order.

Learn more about Lakeville South High School’s STEM Academy here.

In 2015, PTC created a new award to celebrate one of the most significant, and often overlooked roles in the entire PTC ecosystem. The award honors an instructor that consistently exceeds expectations, elevates the reputation of the Authorized Training Partner network, and delights students. Jeff Fulciniti, Senior Director North America Interim PTC University, presented The PTC University Instructor of the Year award to its premier recipient January 6^th, 2016.

This award was given to Joel Cartwright, one of the 138 eligible instructors across all of PTC Americas business. “PTC has a vast ecosystem of very well regarded partners and instructors. Some with substantial years of experience and product knowledge that could simply not be replicated,” said Alister Fraser, Authorized Training Partners and Academic Programs, Americas, PTC.

Joel’s passion for education, product expertise, and un-matched client-facing skills has allowed him to thrive throughout his tenure in the PTC and EAC ecosystem. Joel loves to meet new students, welcome previous ones, and consistently impart the educational tools allowing individuals to improve their own position and skills.

“The instructors at EAC, and Joel specifically, are critical to the value EAC provides its customers. Effective instruction on the technology allows our customers to innovate and optimize without software getting in the way,” said Thane Hathaway, President & CEO of EAC Product Development Solutions.

When asked about what this award means to him, Joel responded, “The Instructor of the Year award stands for many things. It starts with PTC’s commitment to quality within their software options, their Learning Management System (LMS), and the instruction manuals we use in class. The entire PTC University community tries very hard to uphold quality. Here at EAC my fellow instructors and I take educating our customers very seriously. Our standards are very high and I am truly honored to receive this award and recognition.”

A number of factors contributed to selecting the award recipient. Members of the PTC University staff evaluated instructor certification and course mastery scores, student evaluations of course content and customer satisfaction, the volume of students trained, and the number of courses taught by an instructor.

For more than 15 years Joel has been a front-runner in most, if not all, of the award criteria and 2015 was no exception. He has been a full-time PTC Certified instructor since 2000 and joined EAC Product Development Solutions in 2004. Cartwright delivered an astounding 70 classes during 2015. That’s an average of more than one per week. Despite this high volume and a nearly perfect certification record he maintained the highest overall customer satisfaction score among all PTC Americas instructors.

Joel explained that the key to success is simple. He treats all of his students with the same respect, eases them through struggles, and makes them excited to learn more.

“For a large majority of our end users, an instructor might be the only person from PTC they interact with throughout their entire CAD or PLM career. The instructors in our network are very often the public face of PTC. They carry on their shoulders our credibility as a company and the perception of our solutions depends in large part on the experience customers have with their instructors,” said Jeff Fulciniti, Senior Director North America Interim PTC University, PTC.

“I am incredibly proud of Joel. I don’t believe there is a more worthy recipient of PTC’s Instructor of the Year Award. It’s good to see that his demeanor, professionalism, expertise, and consistent focus on creating value for the students does not go unnoticed. Joel is dedicated to staying on the leading edge of product development education. This is why students ask for him by name. I’m honored to have him on our team,” said Hathaway.

Today we talk about the fifth and final system archetype we’ll cover in this series — The Tragedy of the Commons. It is a system that starts with independent and rational behavior, but it leads to a disaster. It starts with a shared resource with a number of individuals sharing this same resource. Each individual tries to optimize the use of the resource to his or her best advantage. That is to say, to grow their use of the resource. The individual that grows the use of their resource captures 100% of the benefit of the resource, but the cost of the resource is shared amongst all of the people that use the resource. That 100% of the gain and only a small portion of the cost drives increasing use of the resource and sometimes leads to the resource being overused.

Here is a related example – if you go to a restaurant with three of your friends and, to make things easier, you decide ahead of time that you’re just going to split the tab 4 ways. When this happens you’re likely to consume more food and drink than if you were picking up your own tab because you want to make sure you’re not being cheated. So this use of a common shared resource drives increasing utilization.

The growth of every individual’s use of a common resource ends up abusing the resource and the resource, if it’s a renewable resource, the resource can be destroyed. It’s the problem of overgrazing, overfishing of the oceans, the behavior that lead to the elimination of all the trees on Easter Island.

In non-renewable resource situations you have overburdening of the shared resource. This overburdening, as we learn from Don Reinertsen in queuing theory, can lead to a decrease in efficiency and availability of the resource.

In product development, if we look to engineering as a shared resource, we see that we have a lot of people using this resource somewhat independently. You have marketing making requirements, you have the executive team, you have manufacturing that has needs that are brought to engineering, and customer support also gives input to engineering addressing market issues. Each of these resources looks to optimize the use of the resource and this drives the system archetype of the Tragedy of the Commons where engineering ends up being overburdened and as queuing theory says it’s efficiency drops off dramatically.

The antidote for the Tragedy of the Commons system is simply management of the resource. Instead of letting everyone operate it independently it’s to put a management system in place that doles out access to the resource. In product development or engineering this management takes the form of a single queue for engineering requests, clearly defining engineering requirements and requests, and prioritization of all the requests that come engineering sot he most important tasks are getting the available resources and the resources are not taxed or overburdened. The interesting thing to me is that these three management antidotes to the problem of the shared resource of engineering are the three practices — engineering requests, requirements management, and prioritization — are core to an Agile product development system that EAC promotes that is finding increased usage and utilization even in hardware and systems engineering organizations.

Contact us to learn more about how Systems Thinking and the application of our Product Development Operating System can help your organization become more efficient, productive, innovative, and competitive. Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/systhinking