Vtech 2002 Annual Report Download - page 19

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Annual Report 2002 17
c
new product introduction team
onsumers around the world
increasingly demand tomorrow’s
technology. Further, their
impatience with existing technologies
has resulted in shorter life cycles for even the most
innovative products. Staying on top of consumer demands is
not only a challenge for designers – it’s a major challenge for
contract manufacturers.
VTech’s contract manufacturing services business (CMS) rose to this challenge at the
same time the Group mandated that all business units restructure their operations to become
more customer-oriented. In 2001, we introduced the “New Product Introduction” (NPI) program
to provide customers value-added services during the project transition phase – the phase
between “design” and “manufacture”.
The NPI team is comprised of a group of well-rounded project engineers with experience in
product design, component sourcing and manufacturing. The goal of the NPI team is very
simple: to assist customers‘ engineers during the design stage to ensure their designs are
created in a way that is conducive to effective manufacturing. This dynamic exchange of ideas
during the development stage ultimately results in substantial savings in time and cost –
savings that can be passed right on to the consumers at the retail level.
We estimate that customers enjoy a 10 to 15 percent cost savings when using the NPI
program compared to projects launched with prototypes that do not take into account the
manufacturing process. As a further benefit to customers, the NPI services are bundled with
the standard manufacturing agreement with customers and provided at no additional cost.
VTech’s New Product Introduction team, founded in mid-2001, has already helped dozens of
customers achieve significant cost savings that ultimately ensure products launch on time
and on budget.
shortening the
product development cycle
Review of Operations