Competitiveness throughout the Life-Circle
Keep the cutting edge razor-sharp!
Usually product lifecycle management is seen as a one-off sequence: concept creation, product development, and product change management (a.k.a. healthcare, or product quality management). The last of these is often ranked lowest in importance. It is a retrofit post-on, a long-lost and recently adopted relative.
Logically, the focus should be on managing existing products and keeping the offering competitive. That is the asset one has at one’s disposal, and it is certainly worth nurturing!
New product developments should be started only when imperative. They are risky, time-consuming, and expensive. Nevertheless, the corporate heroes are those who boldly try the untried, not those who get results more efficiently by smart restructuring of existing solutions.
But in fact, new product developments are a special case of product changes. Further contemplation is outside our scope here, but let's just refer to that old axe of grandpa’s, still in everyday use, and still in perfect condition. The very same sharp axe – except that the shaft was replaced five times and the head twice.
A product should be nurtured as a part of recursive life circle. It should not just gradually fade away after retirement. It should reincarnate embedded in new concepts and products.
Not cradle to the grave, but cradle to the cradle.
TREFOIL™ simply consists of three, overlapping processes to formulate a concept, create a product, and hone its competitive edge. The processes feed each other in a recurring manner. Together they form a Brunnian link where removing any ring results in two unlinked rings.
TREFOIL™ advances
- reuse,
- renewal, and
- recycle.
Constant utilization of accumulated experience is in core of a learning organization. The main object is not the produce as such, but technologies, competences and knowledge.
What for TREFOIL?
Trefoil is Latin for a three-leaf clover. It symbolizes the three cyclical processes of our product life cycle management model.