product realization

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The chasm analogy

March 23, 2010 in Uncategorized | 3 comments

Been thinking a lot about productization lately (okay, been doing a lot of productization lately).  Up until now I’ve been using the brick wall analogy to describe what productization is–you know, helping companies get past the complete the design and throw it over the wall to manufacturing issue.  Been there, done that, doesn’t work.

But perhaps a better analogy is that product development is a ramp, bumpy to say the least, but there is this unmarked chasm right near the end of design just as you can clearly see manufacturing (and customer revenue) nirvana.  Some never see it coming; some hit the accelerator and try to jump it, Evil Knievel style.  Some slow down to a stop, get out and search for a path.  Some panic. 

Of course a few smart productization engineers would have had the foresight to have built a bridge…

Chuck

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Even More Productization Definitions

February 26, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

Many thanks to the denizens of the LinkedIn group “Product Realization” and others who contributed alternative definitions:

12. “The act of modifying something, such as a concept or a tool internal to an organization, to make it suitable as a commercial product+, from Google (thanks Richard)

13. “Productization would be the process of taking a prototype or existing crude product and designing in all the details to ease manufacturability or lower costs. This process could also include any changes to make the product more sellable or appealing to the market” (thanks ed)

14. “Turning what you make or want to make into a safe, durable, as profitable as possible product that your target customer will want or need to buy.” (thanks Don)

15. “Applying the art and science of manufacturing to an item to make it consumable, profitable, and disposable.” (thanks Sandy)

All for now.  Have a great weekend and enjoy the last days of the Olympics (my favs: snow cross, bob-sledding, hockey of course and suprisingly figure skating, but only because a hometown girl did good (go Rachel Flatt!)).

Chuck

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More Productization Definitions

February 24, 2010 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

This has been the hot topic the last few weeks, both in the ether and also at the NoCo Entre meetup earlier this week (see previous blog) where we got some lively feedback on the topic.  Here’s a list of productization definitions (or product realization) some more tongue in cheek than others:

  1. Turning R&D projects into manufacturable products
  2. Taking a concept and turning it into a production stable product
  3. Turning a science project into a real product
  4. Turning nearly done into done done
  5. What still needs to be finished after R&D says its done
  6. The gap between design and manufacturing
  7. The design phase is usually where 80% of the product development effort is typically spent. The final industrialization phase is where 80% of the problems typically occur. Productization is what is done to remedy this imbalance.
  8. Make stuff work
  9. The art of taking products from nearly done to really done
  10. The remaining 80% of the product development effort after design says a product is finished…
  11. “No results found for productization: Did you mean predigestion?” (www.dictionary.com)

Other definitions? What do you think?

Chuck

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Northern Colorado entrepreneurs help us refine Productization

February 23, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

Keith and I had the privilege of presenting Zebulon Solutions to a large group of entrepreneurs at the Northern Colorado Entrepreneurs Network’s (NoCo Entre) monthly meetup in Fort Collins last night. 

http://www.nocoentre.net/index.html

NoCo Entre is the brainchild of Peter Olins and Patrick Gill, and offers a unique format where feedback from the audience to the presenters is the main event, not just presenters pushing a pitch down a snoozing audience’s collective throat.  We were challenged by Peter to close our short pitch with a list of specific areas where we needed help.  We listed 4 topics but the ones that caught everyone’s attention were basically “what is productization?” and “how do we get the word out on productization?”

There was a lively discussion on the term productization–not a word that trips fluidly off the lips; not a 21st century marketing sound bite; and frankly not a word people are used to hearing.  Of course it’s perhaps better than staid alternatives like product realization or industrialization.  Some though we should punt and just talk about product development; some thought we should stick to our guns and press on with defining productization.  There were suggestions that we should: buy web properties surrounding this space; rename the company to something racier;  publish a white paper on productization; write a catchy elevator pitch; overhaul our web site; talk to our elected representatives and solicit their help; and work on PR.  All interesting ideas.  We’ll be chewing on these ideas over the next few weeks for sure. Other suggestions welcome too.

I’ll blog soon on more productization definitions.

Thanks again to Peter and Patrick, and to all the attendees for their support and suggestions.  Entrepreneurialism is alive and well in Northern Colorado.

Chuck

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Productization Definition

February 11, 2010 in Uncategorized | 2 comments

OK, here are a few attempts at defining productization, or product realization, that I have heard or used recently:

1. The art of taking products from nearly done to really done

2. Turning science projects into products

3. The remaining 80% of the product development effort after design says a product is finished…

Other productization  definitions?

Chuck

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Searching for productization

January 22, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

Try searching for the term “productization” on the web.  I did, and I didn’t find much.  Dictionary.com didn’t know the term; the web site productization.com is for sale, and of all things a translation to Russian showed up on the first page of a Google search.  I did find an abstract for a thesis from a Finnish grad student researching the linguistic origins of the word “productization”–interesting stuff but the full thesis wasn’t posted.

http://tucs.fi/publications/insight.php?id=licSuominen09a

Wiktionary.com did have a definition, which is actually quite good: “The act of modifying something, such as a concept or a tool internal to an organization, to make it suitable as a commercial product”

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/productization

So for those of us who always have thought that productization is an unappreciated art–yup, looks like that’s true.  So let’s do something to change that; to bring productization up into the light of day, to show the world why it pays to not neglect productization during product design and development.

Chuck

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What do we do? Productization.

January 15, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

A prospective customer asked me early on, right after we started Zebulon Solutions, “What do you do?” I started to talk about product development and he jumped in with, “So you’re an R&D company.” I thought about this for a second then responded, with a laugh, “No, we’re the folks that come in after the R&D company says they’re done and do the remaining 80% of the work needed to get a product into production.” A little trite, with enough sarcasm to keep old Zeb chortling, and of course we do also do product design and other R&D type activities, but there is a kernel of truth in this.  Productization, which is our core focus, is in factall the oft neglected, un sexy, often dirty work that needs to be done to turn technologies into real products.

More on this to come. Lots more.

Chuck Hodges

Grand Poobah of Productization, at least for today

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