Can a company really be Lean if Product Development hasn’t embraced Lean?
It’s been documented that Toyota realizes 90% of lean’s financial benefits largely from Product Development. When you consider the impact on sales from new products and the cost implications driven by engineering decisions, that number is not surprising. Kaizen activities on the shop floor, while important, only drive a marginal impact on the overall benefits of lean. So if you ignore the area with the greatest potential impact on your organization, can you really consider yourself lean? Inevitably, excluding product development in the lean journey undermines the potential impact of lean methods to the organization.
Why then are so few lean organizations pursuing Lean Product Development (LPD) principles and practices? Although it can be difficult, it can’t be for lack of learning opportunities.
- Develop Lean has assembled an impressive team to transfer LPD knowledge through workshops, materials, and coaching.
- The Lean Enterprise Institute has an LPD focused website.
- The non-profit Lean Product & Process Development Exchange offers annual events in North America and Europe.
- And most recently, Lean Frontiers has partnered with Develop Lean to bring to the lean community a convenient on-line event, called Lean Frontiers Direct, to raise awareness (learn more below).
It is the aim of Lean Frontiers and Develop Lean to create forums of learning together with organizations like those above, to grow the body of knowledge, raise awareness, and promote the use of Lean Product Development methods.
Next Up: Lean Frontiers Direct
June 21, 2017, On-line Event, 10:00AM – 3:30PM Eastern Time LEARN MORE
Lean Frontiers and Develop Lean are pleased to invite you to this convenient, on-line workshop to walk you through the broad understand of Lean Product Develop, through identifying/solving/learning from problems, to action steps for you and your team. directly to your conference room, laptop, or phone. A highlight of the day’s agenda is below. See the full agenda here.
- We begin the day with a broad look at the role of Lean Product Development within the context of the Lean Enterprise. We seek to establish why a Lean enterprise should be concerned with product development and what it means to the enterprise.
- Next we take a step deeper with an overview of Lean product development, how it differs from traditional methods, and the improvement the enterprise could expect. We intend to create a framework for presenting practical techniques participants can use.
- Then we dive deeper by presenting tools that participants can implement immediately to impact their product development system beginning with identifying problems through visual management, followed by solving problems with the A-3 technique, and the application of problem solving to create re-usable knowledge.
- We conclude by surfacing with actionable advice and practical suggestions on how to make progress on your product development improvement journey whether you are just starting the journey, or well on your way.
