Agile Development in Manufacturing Companies: Best Practices and Pitfalls

Seeking to get the best of both worlds, leading manufacturers have borrowed agile development from the software world and integrated it with their Stage-Gate method. Typically, physical-product firms adopt some but not all elements of agile and embed them into the stages of their familiar gating process to replace the traditional product management methods. The resulting hybrid AgileStage-Gate (A-SG) model delivers very positive performance results: faster response to change, higher customer satisfaction, and increased team motivation. Based on the input from leading firms, the article describes a consensus A-SG model that physical-product firms have crafted, including a number of major differences from the pure agile model. Observations and suggestions from experienced A-SG users are summarized. Agile is a new way of working based on a unique mindset; thus, a physical-product version of the agile principles is also presented. But no system is perfect, and pitfalls to watch out for are identified and summarized for manufacturers.