Latest Additions to the Team at Design Profit

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Munro’s is pleased to be welcoming a few new faces to our Design Profit software development center!

Rebekah is an expert in all things communication with experience in web design, media content management, and professional writing. As we celebrate her graduation from Michigan State University with a Master’s degree in Professional Writing. Rebekah started with us in December as a part time employee and has now made the transition to full time as a technical writer in our Design Profit software development center. She has already completed work on various documents and media content for us and is looking forward to dedicating a full time schedule to ensuring that we communicate as clearly as possible!

Michael Brown, our newest addition to the development team, has spearheaded our efforts in CAD integration. Michael completed a number of impressive projects before starting here at Design Profit including—but not limited to– creating video game engines from scratch and designing games themselves! His ability to play around and bring new ideas and approaches into our development process has been essential. He also has expertise in AI and we expect to see much of his contributions in the next update of our software.

Jennifer Rodgers spent over two decades working in the insurance industry and Real Estate while simultaneously managing social media and media sales for local comedians and entertainers. Her experience is varied and it gives her a great edge as our new sales associate. Personable and professional, Jennifer has been a local in Williamston for longer than most, and it seems like she knows everyone who walks through the door! The rest of us here at Design Profit are so happy that she found a new job so close to her community, and we’re very excited for her future here.

Our numbers are rapidly growing to account for the strides we’ve made and will continue to make to guarantee that the tools of Lean Design, Click2Cost, and the rest of Design Profit, operate at peak performance. We look forward to seeing more from these talented individuals as time goes on.

Munro & Associates Forms Strategic Alliance With Hinduja Tech

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Munro & Associates and Hinduja Tech have announced a strategic alliance which will bring the powerhouse of Hinduja Tech’s CAD design expertise together with Munro’s unique approach to product design through their proprietary Lean Design® Methodology, technology cross-pollination, and teardown benchmarking to create a formidable and complimentary symbiosis.

Hinduja Tech, based in Chennai, India is part of the multi-billion dollar Hinduja Group headquartered in the UK, which boasts a heritage of over 100 years in many key industry sectors. Hinduja Tech’s specific experience in Automotive design spanning across the US, Europe and Asia, brings both capability and understanding of the latest design tools in the market and proves a past healthy pedigree in that sector. Hinduja Tech is known for its “frugal engineering” approach to delivering award winning vehicle programs in emerging markets by compressing the barriers of cost, quality and time.

“We are excited to be partnering with Munro & Associates, as both companies share a passion for delivering award winning engineering services and solutions and will now offer flexibility, disrupting the automotive industry via onshore, nearshore and offshore delivery models,” said Kumar Prabhas, CEO, Hinduja Tech.

Together with Munro’s experience which spans the gamut of manufacturing sectors including Automotive, Heavy Industries, Aerospace, Medical, Consumer Electronics, and Marine to name a few, this alliance will combine both Hinduja Tech’s frugal engineering approach with the inherent cost and weight reduction techniques born from within Munro’s methodologies to provide for their mutual customers a full array of engineering services.

Founded in 1988, the Auburn Hills Michigan based Munro & Associates team has brought billions of dollars in savings to companies across the globe using it’s many services including costing, program management, sustainability, benchmarking and reverse engineering as well as the Lean Design® methodology and other Lean techniques. CEO, Sandy Munro, is excited to be working with Hinduja Tech and sees, “unlimited potential” for both companies to grow in their future endeavors.

Munro and Associates Attend NDIA Banquet to Present Munro Award for Academic Excellence

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On April 12th the Michigan chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) held their annual ROTC Awards Recognition Banquet. This event recognizes academic and leadership accomplishments of just under 100 students in the State of Michigan ROTC program. The students, made up of cadets and midshipmen, were presented with awards for their performance in their studies and their participation in ROTC. The Recognition Banquet is sponsored by the NDIA MI Chapter, supported by the Greater Michigan Armed Forces Week Committee, the Association of the United States Army, the Navy League, and a handful of corporate sponsors including Munro and Associates.

Our continued relationship with the NDIA MI chapter and the ROTC program in Michigan is just one aspect of our commitment to our local community and our relationship with defense education and industry. Pictured below David Oberholtzer and Sandy Munro present the students with their awards. The dedication shown by these individuals represents the rigor and enthusiasm our company looks for in future employees. We were very happy to be involved in their recognition this year, and expect great things from these award recipients in the coming years.

Munro & Associates’ World Class Lean Design® Certification is Changing the Industry!

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Munro & Associates has long been a provider of training in various Lean methodologies, but now Munro combines its Lean Design® Methodology instruction with its Design Profit® software training into one comprehensive course.

Students will undergo training with Munro’s instructors providing them with the core basics of the Lean Design® Methodology and then proceeding into the practical applications of these new skills in the Design Profit® software. More importantly, the skills and techniques that students learn in this course can be immediately applied in their current projects at work for an immediate return on investment.

Students will learn how implementing Good Design Principals along with other Lean Design® fundamentals becomes the ultimate influencer of profitability and quality in a products life span and that neglecting these principals can result in a design that is bloated, over cost, over weight, and of poor quality. Students will learn how the different Lean Design® techniques are used to consistently remove waste from the product design itself that ultimately results in a more elegant and higher quality product. “You can never have Lean Manufacturing without Lean Design®” will become a mantra and paradigm shift for students as they explore the practical workings of this methodology which has saved companies around the globe Billions of dollars throughout the last 30+ years.

Once the methodology has been imbued in the students, the trainers move on to how to use the Design Profit® software to compile, sort, and analyze data in a visual mapping context which also helps to expedite the product design process which forces a Lean Design® to be procured, avoiding the pitfalls of poor quality drivers BEFORE they are experienced on the manufacturing floor. Students will learn the importance of creating a costed business case for all design decisions which will illuminate both student and executive as to what the best design choices should consist of.

The course ends in an exam which, upon successful completion, results in the student receiving a unique certification number. This certificate number can then be used throughout the rest of their career to prove they have been successfully trained by Munro in their industry changing techniques, garnering them professional clout that can be carried from job to job throughout anywhere in the world.

Learn more on leandesigncertification.com »

Competitive Benchmarking at Its Highest

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A few months ago, Fusion TV sent the crew from their new show, “Car VS America” to investigate what they called, “One of the stealthiest little known operations in the Detroit area” to uncover one of the best kept secrets of the automotive industry – Munro’s Benchmarking Innovation Center (BIC) to see just how deep the “Competitive Benchmarking” rabbit hole goes.

Munro & Associates has been in the business of Competitive Benchmarking and Reverse Engineering for decades, tearing apart and analyzing anything from cars to tanks, consumer electronics to heavy industrial machines.  They now currently have a materials, process and new technology base rivaled by very few in the Manufacturing industry.

The presenters Michael Ballaban and Raphael Orlove, car-obsessed editors from Jalopnik, now team up in their new show to explore all the inner workings, tricks of the trade, and, in general, experience how people in the Auto Industry take their craft to the next level.

Both presenters of this show were dazzled by the secrets they got to check out and play around with at Munro & Associates.  But to find out what they saw, you will have to watch the episode.

Follow this link to watch a short clip of the program on Munro and find out for yourself.

Munro & Associates (USA) Announces Strategic Benchmarking Agreement with MarkLines (Japan)

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Sandy Munro and Makoto Sakai President Marklines

Munro & Associates Inc. USA announced today that it has reached an agreement with MarkLines Co. Ltd. to be their first Strategic Benchmarking Data Supplier. Munro & Associates will contribute benchmarking and quality data to the MarkLines web portal to add value and unique data to its existing services.

We are very excited about becoming the first benchmarking center supplying data to industry leader MarkLines,” said Sandy Munro, CEO of Munro & Associates. “We look forward to developing our relationship with MarkLines and supporting their subscribers with the unique Munro insights and data from our benchmarking process.”

MarkLines President & CEO, Makoto Sakai, said “We believe this alliance offers major synergies between our companies and will bring great benefits to our expanding client base by adding value to our website and by giving out customers in the Japanese automotive industry access to data from a renowned benchmarking organization.”

Unlocking the Secrets Of BMW’s Car Of The Future

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Joann Muller of Forbes fame recently visited Munro & Associates with her camera crew for an exclusive tour of the BMW i3 teardown and reverse engineering project.  For the last several months the team at Munro have slaved away tearing down and analyzing this high-tech vehicle, uncovering one new technology after another.

Joann describes the scene as, “…a nondescript industrial building in suburban Detroit, (where) a $50,000 BMW is lying in pieces. The place looks like an illegal chop shop, where stolen vehicles are disassembled to be sold as parts.”  Muller goes on to explain though, “But A. Sandy Munro is no car thief: he paid full price for the BMW i3 he subsequently tore apart. Nor is he selling it for parts. He is, however, selling information about this remarkable car to anyone who is interested. And rest assured, a lot of people in the auto industry want to know its secrets.”

Amongst many of the new technologies and process uncovered in this teardown, Muller emphasized the overall importance of these breakthroughs, “to cope with a confluence of troubling trends — global congestion, pollution and, yes, high fuel costs — that threaten the long-term viability of the automotive industry.”

To see the video and article click here.

Or to download the BMW i3 Report Prospectus click here.

Design Profit WeRMS App Gets Featured In Design News

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Today’s design engineers have the added challenge of looking for innovative ways to save weight while enhancing safety and functionality as fuel prices and emissions standards are constricting and augmenting the market place.  They are also constantly looking for new ways to speed up and refine the design process to cope with the added pressures of quick turn-around.  The Design Profit Weight Reduction Material Selector (WeRMS) app may just be the thing the savvy engineer is looking for.

“Energy efficiency is critical and most industries, from automotive, with its need to prepare for increasingly stringent gas mileage standards, to aerospace, with its continual need for improved fuel efficiency. A big part of the drive for efficiency comes down to finding lighter materials that match the strength of steel.”, says Rob Spiegel, Senior Editor of Automation & Motion Control for Design News.

The WeRMS app gives the product design engineer just the edge they are looking for in regards to weight reduction comparisons, especially on the fly.  It’s easy to use interface makes short shrift of comparing materials – a job that is much more tedious and arduous by traditional means.

“We try to make tools by humans for humans – not Vulcans”, is how Andrew Cordoni (a programmer at Design Profit) puts it.  By making the app simple to use and fast, it frees up the engineer time – a commodity in short supply.

Click here for a link to the original article.

Or to download the app today click here.

The Future of Cars Looks Very Different

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The last few months have seen a flurry of activity at Munro & Associates as the team has been undertaking the massive task of dismantling, recording, and analyzing the BMW i3 in minutia for one of the largest and most comprehensive teardown benchmarking and reverse engineering studies the company has ever seen.  This has attracted a lot of media attention, including from the prestigious Wall Street Journal.  Journalist Joseph B. White was one of the visitors who got the full tour of what innovations and secrets this breakthrough vehicle holds.

“Seeing the battery-powered i3 in pieces puts into perspective how far this industry has come over the past quarter century…” , remarks Joseph White in his article.  “The i3 combines some of the auto industry’s oldest ideas with some of its newest”, White reminisces, impressed with the idea of the classic “body-on-frame” concept adapted using the latest carbon fiber technology to achieve a lightweight yet strong structure that is leading the industry.  “BMW’s carbon-fiber city car is an important marker for anyone trying to figure out the future of an industry that is still a centerpiece of the global economy after more than a century.”

White describes Munro as a place where the team “…takes apart cars, seeking clues to design and manufacturing tricks he can sell to manufacturers eager for a cram course on their competition.”

Click here for a link to the original article.

Or to download the BMW i3 Report Prospectus click here.

“Choose to Solve Problems in the Design Phase” Update

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This month, Munro & Associates and Lean Design Canada was honored with not one but 2 articles in the esteemed Medical Device and Diagnostics Industry Magazine.  Below is a quick excerpt from the article.

“With an ever expanding global market and certain internal forces such as a “benevolent” FDA peering down on the American entrepreneurial medical device industry, how can R&D and innovation be free to move the new market without strangling itself?  Unfortunately or fortunately, manufacturers from different manufacturing industries rarely talk or share technologies and manufacturing techniques. This enables the savvy company to borrow from dissimilar industries or practices to create game-changing evolutions that meet quality, manufacturing efficiency and innovation leaps effortlessly while also solving existing unanswered industry needs.”

For the full article, please visit MDDI Magazine online.