Page 328 - (DK) The Business Book

326

TIME IS

MONEY

TIME-BASED MANAGEMENT

IN CONTEXT
Traditionally, new products
FOCUS have been developed in a linear
Product development sequence, moving from one stage
of design to the next.
KEY DATES
5th century BCE The ancient
Greeks use discounted cash
flow to take into account the
amount that money devalues
during lengthy investment By forming multidisciplinary
appraisal decisions. teams, all elements of product design
can be completed simultaneously.
1764 English inventor James
Hargreaves invents the
“spinning jenny”—a device
that enables textile workers to
spin eight spools of cotton at This reduces This allows for
once, rather than just one. design costs. faster development.
1994 Nissan executive
Chris Baylis claims that
“simultaneous engineering”
is the quickest and most
ime has a monetary value. way that other models focus on raw
effective way of achieving
For example, if employees materials and overheads. A time-
“optimum design solution.” T spend an afternoon in an based approach allows companies to
2001 Software developers unproductive meeting, their time manage labor effectively across the
in Utah, US, produce a costs the company money. There is company, to gather true-cost data,
manifesto for the agile also an “opportunity cost,” since the and to cut costs by reducing the
software development meeting prevents them from doing amount of time to develop and
other tasks that are potentially more launch new products.
approach.
productive. This is a typical concern One way to reduce time costs on
of time-based management, which a project is to use a process called
appraises the use of time in the same “simultaneous engineering.” This