Lean Manufacturing Systems

With the speed at which business is moving, companies that develop superior products and bring them to market the fastest will gain a competitive advantage. The lean product development phase must not be organized in a haphazard way. Some product development ideas further your strategy, expand your market potential and make large sales and gross margin prospects whilst others hold onto outdated concepts and ultimately become losers. Product development ideas must be selected to systematically align with the companies overall goals and objectives. This involves establishing a defined product development pipeline, rigid business process flow and adhering to rigid guidelines each step of the way.

The philosophy of lean product development entails maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of both the product design and manufacturing stages. This entails that people, processes and technology of the product development lifecycle are designed, integrated and aligned to be mutually supportive. As a product moves through the development pipeline, the corresponding cost of launching a new product begins to escalate. Often, ideas that are appealing during the early stages of development become unattractive to changes in the marketplace or due to technology or cost hurdles. Case studies indicate that companies that adhere to rigid process reviews at each stage of the development process have a higher overall success rate and a better chance of minimizing the costs associated with development.

Additional supporting evidence suggests that companies that adopt a front loaded lean product development process at the beginning of product formulation have a greater success rate than those that don't. This results in a lean process driven from strategy with fewer number of products in play. The collaborative work of cross functional teams requires a great deal of attention to detail with multiple inputs from marketing, engineers, suppliers, quality control and manufacturing. This ensures that all viewpoints are given the proper weight of attention throughout the life of the project and that the team is empowered to make the right decisions to move the project forward.

Much of the drive and initiative in lean product development comes from the experiences and case studies of the automotive industry which have adopted similar principles and lean manufacturing processes that originated from North Amercian manufacturing companies. This mindset applies to all organizations that bring products to market and can benefit from adopting optimization tools and methods from other industries and adapting them to maximize the effectiveness of the product design and manufacturing processes to relevant to their particular industry.

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