Lean product development
Lean Development (including Lean Product Development ) wears the successful management concept of " lean production " in the development and holistic product development process.
The application of lean thinking in production has led to great successes. The success story of Toyota can but in their dynamics and sustainability through a lean production alone can not be explained. By analyzing the past few years is rather clear that Lean Production at Toyota is not about a singular production system, but rather is the result of a corporate culture in the field of production.
Exactly these lean corporate culture, it is now also the other business processes imprinted beyond production - particularly the production directly upstream core process of product development. Thus, the traditional organizational fields such as innovation, R & D management, predevelopment, application, start-up management, development of suppliers, etc. are provided on a self-contained common foundation.
The five guiding principles of the Lean concept
Are just to realize in the development and then characterize the lean development ( engl. lean product development) of each company.
To put it simply, that lean development in the core due to the fact to examine out and combat structures, processes and tools to useless, that is " wasted " (Japanese MUDA ) the identified weaknesses and their causes waste by countermeasures. In the center of MUDA elimination is the realization that the same principles that lead to more efficient production, including on the provision of services in product development are applicable and there an efficient ( " make things right " ) and effective ( " the right things make " run ) work sequence. The result is lean development, due to its enormous reach and leverage offers the potential for a sustainable competitive advantage. The study " Lean Development in Germany " has shown, among other things, that 20-30 % of the capacity are bound by waste in development processes. The aim of Lean Development initiatives is this capacity newfound to invest in value-adding activities, so that, for example, the time-to -market is shortened more projects with the same team be possible to secure production start-ups and better product quality can be assured.
" Lean development " should not be confused with the Toyota Production System. Toyota was the benchmark in the study by Womack, Jones & Roos at MIT (Boston, USA). However, LEAN is a process developed from this study academic planning, which continues to develop to this day and ends in the comprehensive " LEAN Thinking " approach. The information on the Toyota Product Development (eg Morgan & Liker ) public rather describe the procedure for application constructions and thus more likely to fall short as a template.
Lean development is still a little-noticed approach, the study suggests that many companies are already on the way to pick up these. Considering the current literature, it can be seen that you are working with different approaches. These range punctual with extensive, methodical system descriptions on methods kits, to, task- fixed practice solutions. It is expected that the concept, driven by practical experience, develop in fast steps.