Recently, the New Product Development (NPD) literature has been packed with references to “lean”. One firm reports an improvement in cycle time from one year to just over five months using lean NPD methods (1). But, just what exactly is lean?
Lean manufacturing generally refers to the Toyota Production system, which revolutionized the automobile industry in the 1980s and 1990s. Thorough analysis of factory lay-outs, worker/machine interfaces, time queues, and spare parts/inventory management processes led to drastically improved productivity and quality measures. Soon, we began hearing about “lean enterprises,” “lean office,” and now “lean new product development.”
Fundamentally, lean is a philosophy that shifts from a linear sequence to an integrated approach (2; 3). Lean methods are designed to remove variability from the process (4), yet what it takes to develop a new product is very different than what it takes to maintain ongoing activities (5). Therefore, lean NPD should be viewed as a subset of a lean strategy for an entire production system (6). And, of course, lean techniques cannot turn a bad idea into a great product with high profitability (7).
In this paper, we focus on three steps to lean New Product Development.
- Customer Focus,
- Rapid Feedback, and
- Eliminate Waste.
Lean philosophy and implementation, like an octopus, has many tentacles and approaches. In fact, some researchers advise that implementation of just one
or two lean techniques, without implementing lean as a coherent value across the entire corporation, is not sufficient to achieve a lean organization or lean product development (6). However, these three steps provide an entry to understanding lean in NPD.
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References
1. Operating in a Low Entry Barrier Market, dj Orthopedics Adopts “Lean” Product Development Processes to Win. Gidersleeve, Rich. June 2006, PDMA Visions, pp. 8-10.
2. The New New Product Development Game. Takeuchi, Hirotaka and Nonaka, Ikujiro. Jan-Feb 1986, Harvard Business Review, pp. 187-146.
3. Can We Just Stop Calling It “Lean” Product Development. Kania, Eugene. March 2008, PDMA Visions, pp. 9-11.
4. Journey to Lean (Book Review). Rienertsen, Donald. 2002, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Vol. 22, pp. 539-540.
5. Supporting Innovation and Venture Development in Established Companies. Kanter, Rosabeth. 1985, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 1, pp. 47-60.
6. The Difficult Path to Lean Product Development. Karlsson, Christer and Ahlstrom, Par. 1996, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Vol. 13, pp. 283-295.
7. Mascitelli, Ronald. Mastering Lean Product Development. Northridge, CA : Technology Perspectives, 2011.
Image of Toyota interior courtesy of Flickr.
Image of octopus courtesy of Flickr.
© 2011 Global NP Solutions, LLC
