CASE STUDY Situation Getting new products from the lab approved for the plant network took longer each year. But competitors were getting faster. New technology promised to deliver process reengineering and increase productivity by automating the new product approvals process. But after the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) application was implemented, things got worse. Rejection rates skyrocketed. Even after final approval, 25 percent of products were resubmitted because of quality failures. As cycle times slowed, the PLM was used less. Hard copy approval folders returned. An internal operations consulting team conducted a lean process improvement evaluation. They concluded that extensive process standardization was required before the approvals process could be automated. Clie

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