David Gardner

David J. Gardner, Founder and Principal of mass-customization-expert.com, has over 30 years experience in the design and integration of innovative business process and information technology solutions for "start-up" as well as established companies. He is known for his pragmatism and track record of achieving results for his clients.

David has extensive experience helping companies implement: 

• mass customization (build-to-order, assemble-to-order and engineer-to-order)
• configuration management systems (part numbering systems, change management systems, on-line document control systems)
• operations strategies and information technology integration

He has held management positions in Engineering, Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing, and Customer Service, and Product Management.

He joined Tandem Computers in 1979 where he was responsible for Corporate Documentation Standards for Tandem's highly configurable and expandable computer systems.

In 1983, he designed and implemented a Configuration Guide for Dialogic Systems instituting a process that greatly simplified a complex, modular product such that the field sales organization and international OEM customers could easily define their order requirements. This methodology satisfied the product definition needs of sales, marketing, engineering, manufacturing, customer service and finance. David also developed what is believed to be Silicon Valley's first "on-line document control system" providing a means to support change requests, change orders, part number assignment, etc.

David improved the approach for defining highly-configurable products at System Industries in the late 1980's by developing a methodology that not only accommodated "new system" orders but also fully addressed "add-on" orders. This company built modular disk and tape storage systems that could be attached to each computer system ever produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). 60% of the employees used the Configuration Guides as a means to validate and order highly configurable and expandable storage sub-systems used widely with Digital's computing systems. David also developed and implemented an on-line document control system.

David founded his consulting practice in 1991. Here are a few examples of consulting projects undertaken:

• Defined the end-user requirements and subsequent implementation of a Configurator at a Fortune 500 custom semiconductor manufacturer. Prior to assisting with the Configurator, he led the effort to develop a "Process and Packaging Capabilities Guide" defining the company's product offerings. The guide was converted into a Windows "Help" application integrated with the Configurator.
• Helped a large format color printer start-up company design and implement the operations infrastructure to assist in transitioning the company from product development to manufacturing. This included creating and implementing engineering documentation processes and procedures; designing and implementing an on-line document control system that improved communication between facilities in Sunnyvale, San Jose, and Anaheim; defining bill of material product structure and implementing an MRP system.
• Helped a semiconductor capital equipment manufacturer with a detailed configurator requirements analysis and assessed the business process impacts associated with implementing a mass customization process.
• Assisted a provider of mass customization technology and consulting solutions with marketing and sales strategies.
• Speaking to Engineering best practices conferences about mass customization

In July 2002, David was recruited by E-ONE, one of the world's largest manufacturers of fire and rescue vehicles, as Vice President of Product Management to lead an enterprise-wide change initiative to transition the company from an "engineer-to-order" to a "mass customization" business paradigm to:

• Reduce the cost and lead-time associated with engineering each vehicle to improve company profitability
• Reduce overall SG&A expenses
• Accurately describe the company's product configuration capabilities to better set customer and dealer expectations
• Provide accurate material and labor costs to eliminate "margin surprises"

This project involved:

• Restructuring the bills of material into a modular structure to create a standardized set of options that could be custom-configured into highly-customized vehicles.
• Leading the development and implementation of a new configurator system to assist the company's dealers with configuring products and generating configuration-specific specifications and quotations.
• Designing and implementing a decision-costing system to provide an understanding of the labor and materials cost for each unique, quoted configuration and to provide a means to better align pricing with actual costs. This data was integrated with the company's ERP system as well as the Configurator.

He is a graduate of San Jose State University (BA) and Santa Clara University (MBA). David is also a founding member of Society for the Advancement of Consulting (SAC).