Two acquired product programs, built worlds apart.
The same product, two different playbooks.
A Fortune 100 construction-equipment multinational had grown by acquisition, and now held two functionally similar product programs from two companies on opposite sides of the world. Around a thousand R&D engineers were involved, split by large differences in culture and language.
The programs carried misaligned strategies, conflicting engineering habits, and different readings of what customers actually required. Left as they were, the two would keep duplicating cost and drifting further apart.
We mediated first, then modularized.
SAM worked as a mediator before anything else - putting alignment ahead of any single technical preference, so the two organisations could agree on a shared direction rather than defend their own.
One shared architecture, up to 50% fewer parts.
A common understanding of modularization took hold across the organisation, with shared components, suppliers, processes and documentation, and a comparable product architecture on both sides.
With the range brought under structure, the two programs converged - carrying up to half the parts while keeping the product variation customers valued.
