Dfscprogram

Hewlett-Packard’s Design for Supply Chain Program
By Brain Cargille, Stephen Bear, and Jason Amaral

Innovation Summary
The concept of “design for supply chain” (DfSC) is not new at Hewlett-Packard (HP). (See: HP’s “Six-Pack” for a summary of DfSC.) For more than ten years the company has evaluated the supply chain impacts of design decisions. Indeed, two early examples—DeskJet localization and LaserJet universality—are described in a wellregarded Harvard Business Review article and in widely used academic case studies. 1

What is new is the innovation that has allowed HP to deploy DfSC in a systematic, repeatable, and broad-based way to hundreds of product development teams and thousands of engineers across the company. A unified set of technologies, methods, training, and infrastructure have been implemented to enable rapid and effective DfSC decision-making. “Over the past 3 years DfSC has been broadly adopted by all HP’s Business Groups and Regions. In addition, there have been over 50 individual projects undertaken in collaboration with engineering, marketing, supply chain and finance teams. Savings directly attributable to these programs has exceeded $200 million/year and are expected to reach the $1 billion mark in 2006.” - Dick Conrad, Senior Vice President, HP Global Operations Supply Chain

1

Edward Feitzinger and Hau L. Lee. “Mass Customization at Hewlett-Packard: The Power of Postponement.” Harvard Business Review, January-February 1997: pp. 116-121. Laura Kopczak and Hau L. Lee. “Hewlett-Packard DeskJet Printer Supply Chain (A) and (B).” Stanford Teaching Case, 1996. Hau L. Lee. “Product Universality: The HP Network Printer Case.” Stanford Teaching Case, 1999.

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HP’s “Six-Pack” HP uses a portfolio of six DfSC techniques to reduce supply chain costs, enhance customer experience, and increase profits. (See page 11 for more details.)

Examples of benefits achieved. 1. Variety Control: The business PC organization reduced... [continues]

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