To maintain his company’s market leadership after the microprocessor market was forever changed by the release of a new breed of computer chip, Youssef El-Mansy was given a $200 Million budget and some of the world’s finest scientists and technologists.

His teams were responsible for developing, improving and streamlining the manufacturing process at the technology development center in the Pacific Northwest and then transferring that process to a new production facility somewhere else in the world. Silicon chip production facilities - built at a cost of more than $1 billion each - can not begin generating revenue until the manufacturing process has been transferred, assimilated and ramped up to large-scale production speed.

Each project was on a drop-dead schedule, timed to precisely match the opening of a new facility already under construction. Because each succeeding generation of chips is dependent upon the technical breakthroughs of its predecessor, the success of each one is crucial; failure meant the next three generations of chips would also be delayed and the company would lose significant amounts of money for decades to follow. Youssef dedicated 80% of his resources to this project.

The main project consisted of three different teams of technologists. One team began working on the project in its infancy, five years earlier. As their process design world matured to the point of requiring significant resources, a second team consisting of a hundred process engineers from the new facility joined the project, simultaneously learning the nascent manufacturing process while helping design and improve it. As the project progressed further, a third team, consisting of additional process engineers and the management group from other facilities joins the team.

Youssef was responsible not only for developing new manufacturing processes, he had to develop management teams at the same time.

As the main project matures, three other projects, aimed at doing the same for the next three generation os silicon chips, begin pushing for the use of resources. The new projects are always bigger, more complex, and expected to be done faster!

The company commissioned ACT to develop a management system capable of supporting enormous growth, change and flexibility. ACT consulted with nearly every management team on each project. Unlike traditional consultants, ACT works with the teams as they so the actual project planning and development. By working with the team on the job, they avoided interrupting the work flow for classroom sessions or off-site retreats. Goal setting/project planning, problem solving, work review, and decision-making procedures were developed and standardized. In nine months, they had built a very reliable and transferable system of management.

The methods developed by ACT have made chip design-to-manufacturing transfer a seamless and amazingly fast operation. Youssef's center is now operating with a $2 billion annual budget. Though their chips grow 4 times in complexity with each generation, the total development cycle, including volume manufacturing, has remained stable by reducing product production cycle time by more than 10% every year.