Extreme Manufacturing: How to design, build and sell a roadworthy car in seven days

Update 2025This topic has become so important that I am writing a book about it. You can read here, why it is so important and here is the book website where you can actively participate. Product Velocity can contribute.

This week the ReConf in Munich. ReConf is one of the largest conferences on requirements management and engineering in Europe. There was also a separate track on systems engineering.

There would be a lot to report from ReConf for this blog. But today I would like to talk about the keynote by Joe Justice that impressed me at least. And it shows that the traditional car manufacturers need to dress warmly!

Joe Justice is the President of Hardware at Scrum Inc. which his company WikiSpeed has bought. WikiSpeed produces cars worldwide in extremely small quantities, but a new model every week! Joe co-developed the Extreme Manufacturing Method, which he also uses in his company. The impetus for today's activities came from the X-Price in 2006, which awarded 10 million dollars (US) for the development of a safe, highly efficient car.

Joe was fascinated by the challenge and started working on the problem on evenings and weekends. He had never built a car before, but as a scrummaster, the walls of his garage quickly filled up with post-its, which he used to organize the weekly sprints. To make a long story short: Using this way of working, the first modular car was created within three months. The result was a vehicle that meets the requirements for roadworthy cars and consumes half as much fuel as a Toyota Prius. Joe reports on this in his TEDx talk.

Working evenings and weekends, Joe Justice and his team won three world records.

How is that possible? Firstly, the work had to be divided up. The teams cut the subtasks so small that they could complete them within a week. But most importantly, the work never dictated the solution: Instead, it merely defined the framework conditions (costs, safety requirements, interfaces, etc.) under which the team had to realize the sub-problem.

Specify the "why" and "for whom", but never the "how"

(Joe Justice

The integration of tests was also inspired by the agile way of working, as a roadworthy car must meet the legal requirements. Initially, the crash tests were carried out "by hand", but this quickly became a bottleneck. Using simulations that were compared with physical tests, it was soon possible to completely dispense with the physical tests. As a result, the virtual crash tests are now carried out at the end of each sprint.

A new vehicle model is developed, built and sold every week.

Build Server Factory

Inspired by software development, a group known as the "Build Server Factory" is building the car's modules. Investors, users and authorities describe what they expect in user stories. Examples include:

• Must pass "Offset Frontal Impact Test" (authority);
• Must cost less than $5000 in material (investor)
• Must have at least 3 cubic meters of lockable luggage space.

The inevitable happened: Scrum Inc. became aware of Joe's work and acquired the company. Scrum Inc. is the company of Jeff Sutherland, who systematized Scrum and the agile approach, making it widespread today. Scrum comes from software development, but Scrum Inc. was increasingly confronted with clients from industries outside of software, such as pharmaceuticals, aviation, finance and many others.

The acquisition of Scrum, Inc. forced Joe to become more professional. In particular, he realized that he didn't really understand many aspects of his business. It soon crystallized which core metrics were necessary for a good understanding and smooth operation according to Scrum:

• Backlog
• Revenue per sprint
• Costs per team and sprint
• Satisfaction (removal of impediments)
• Productivity (Velocity)

A dashboard with a few core metrics allows Joe to keep his company running across 23 countries. [tweetthis]A dashboard with a few core metrics enables management and leadership across 23 countries[/tweetthis]

Today, each team has an assembly line and not just one, but a small number of cars are built each week. This is made possible in part by the fact that suppliers can now be found for all elements who can deliver in less than a week. This has been made possible not least by modern manufacturing processes such as 3D printing and standard components.

Scrum at Scale

There are now several independent teams responsible for the vehicle components, which both manufacture and improve their components in each sprint. Each week, however, a vehicle must also be assembled from these components. Joe refers to this as Scrum at Scale, and integration was a major challenge that was resolved by clearly assigning responsibility: A part is not complete until it has been integrated.

The future

Today, WikiSpeed builds a car in 28 minutes. But that is nothing compared to what Tesla has in mind: Tesla's production lines differ from today's usual production facilities in one revolutionary aspect: the robots are not adapted to specific predetermined parts, but have flexible actuators that can handle different parts. This means that these factories can build different vehicle models without reconfiguration! Tesla last changed the shape of the Model S body 7 years ago, not unusual in the automotive industry. Joe suspects that Tesla will unlock this capability from Model 3 onwards, and that could mean a new car model every week!

It is obvious that development and production work is being massively parallelized here. In order to synchronize this work, the "Enabling Specification" was introduced, for which the product owner is responsible. This is a one-pager (maximum!) in which business constraints and market objectives are recorded. Writing this one-pager is not easy, but it is a powerful tool that synchronizes all teams and is also displayed on a large poster in each work area.

The established vehicle manufacturers know that they have to catch up. Joe is working with Daimler, BMW, VW and many other vehicle manufacturers to make the transition to more agile development and production methods. Only time will tell whether they can do this in time to compete with new, innovative manufacturers.

YouTube bonus: In the Keynote from Scrum Day 2015 contains some parts of this keynote.

Image: WikiSpeed