Lean Product Development
Realizing Lean Product Development
Can you do more by doing less? If you focus on doing the right things, the answer is decidedly, “yes.” The guiding principal of lean manufacturing, for example, is to find and eliminate wasteful production activities. While having proved wildly successful for adept practitioners, the potential benefits of lean manufacturing are finite, inherently limited to the reduction of a fixed quantity of cost.
In recent years, therefore, leading product development organizations have sought to apply concepts of lean manufacturing more broadly, to product development activities. Hence, the past decade has seen the emergence of lean product development, a concept widely touted, written about and promoted within the manufacturing sector. The oft-cited Toyota Production System is put forth as the quintessential example of lean done right. But, while simply stated, the achievement of lean product development is not a trivial task.
Fundamentally, lean asserts that there are ways to deploy people, process and technology to better realize product development efficiencies. Lean principles of front-end loading, smooth information flow and knowledge capture, foster a fluid, empowered development environment in which the activities of teams are highly visible, decision-making is delayed to the most opportune time, management is acutely involved in daily activities, and a culture of continual improvement prevails.
In particular, lean product development takes on increased relevance given today’s highly distributed product development teams. On one hand, the promise of global product development offers companies greater worldwide capacity and resource flexibility. Yet, it simultaneously risks offsetting productivity advantages of a centralized workgroup.
If you are faced with meeting aggressive product development objectives through reliance on globally distributed team members and partners, the applicably of lean product development techniques may be of prime interest to you.
With over 20 years of experience supporting global product development organizations, PTC can help you realize your lean product development objectives by addressing process, technology and people with: Product Development System (PDS) Technology, and Implementation & Training Services.
