Lean Product Development

Womack, Jones and Roos’s 1990 book The Machine that Changed the World brought the modern-day principles of lean manufacturing to the attention of the west.  The book coined the phrase “Lean Manufacturing” while presenting a straightforward account of the history of automobile manufacturing combined with a study of Japanese, American and European automotive assembly plants.  It clearly illustrated the significant performance gap between the Japanese and western automotive industries, and described one of the key elements accounting for this superior performance as Lean Production.

There is general agreement that some of the key principles of lean manufacturing make enormous sense within the NPD context.  In particular, the reduction in excessive process variability, the creation of flow and the elimination of waste are seen as central elements of lean thinking that can be applied in the development process. However, despite some similarities, the differences between manufacturing and NPD are substantial, and these differences have a profound effect on how lean principles should be applied in product development, making Lean Product Development quite different from Lean Manufacturing. This report highlights those differences and delivers a clear course of actions for successful implementation across the 5 key lean principles:

1. VALUE : Specify what the value is and what you’re trying to do – an element that only can be described by the customer)

2. IDENTIFY THE VALUE STREAM : The core set of actions required to produce a product – the individual steps you have to do to deliver the identified value

3. FLOW : Make them flow – align them so the actions will work

4. PULL : Let the customer pull – the customer should begin to pull the product on an “as-needed basis” – don’t simply turn the process on and begin to “pile up” product)

5. PURSUE PERFECTION : Develop and amend the process continuously to pursue perfection – it’s a changing world and you can always make things better

The lean approach essentially aims to deliver customer value using least resource.

Organised in easy to follow sections, this report is supplemented by insights from some of Europe’s leading consultancies, as well as real case studies from European Product Development teams including Nokia, Honeywell and Thyssenkrupp.

The Principles of Lean Product Development report  includes:

• detailed insight into how to maximise the efficiency of NPD 
• expert views and real examples
• tried and tested frameworks
• methodologies
• metrics and tools 
• essential contact details for those transferring Lean concepts to Product Development  

all aimed to ensure that your team is optimising its process from concept to delivery.