Lean Product Development – An Overview

I hope to write several posts around Lean Product Development tools and my experience implementing the tools in an R&D and manufacturing setting.  I have many years of process and product R&D and commercialization experience.  In my travels, I have seen a wide variety of tools and methodologies used to manage the development and commercialization processes with varying degrees of success.  This is an introductory post on Lean Product Development tools and the benefits of using these tools. 

Many of the current development tools such as Lean Product Development, Agile, Open Source Innovation, and Crowd sourcing are not really new.  In fact, many would argue that Agile and many of the other techniques originated from Lean Product Development tools pioneered by companies like Toyota and organizations such as the US Air Force.  Lean Product Development origins can be traced back to the traditional development techniques pioneered by innovators like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison.  Some will claim that the Wright Brothers’ method of research and development is an early purveyor of Lean Development and influenced the latest techniques that are in-vogue currently.

The birth of Lean Product Development really pre-dates Toyota adoption. 

Modern day Lean Development was an outcome of the US Air Force’s desire to catch up rapidly during World War 2. The United States was behind on much of its military technology at the start of World War 2 and the US Air Force modified and evolved the design practices in order to reduce cycle time for innovation.  The P-51 Mustang was a shining example of drastically reducing development time from several years to 6 months using techniques developed by the US Air Force.  When Toyota and other Japanese manufacturers were rebuilding after World War 2, the US Air Force shared its techniques with the Japanese manufacturers.  Toyota, in turn, optimized and internalized these techniques to revolutionize the automobile industry.  As time progressed, the Japanese car industry was not the only business to adopt these principals.  Industries ranging from software, computer equipment, pharmaceuticals and chemicals have adopted and modified various lean product development practices.

This first thing to realize is that Lean Product Development is not the same as Lean Manufacturing.   There are many similarities but the two sets of tools are distinctly different.  Lean Manufacturing tools can be used to improve development processes (most specifically pilot or prototype manufacturing processes) but many of the elements of lean manufacturing such as 5S, SMED, TPM, Kaizen may not be directly applicable to research and development communities.  Instead, there are five main groups of tools that are integral to Lean Product Development:

1. Set Based Flexible Design
2. Integration Focused Leadership
3. Dynamic Cross Functional Teams
4. Knowledge Sharing/Continuous Learning Process
5. Flow/Cadence Driven Development

As this is just a primer for Lean Product Development, I will briefly discuss each of the tool categories. I will try to go more in-depth on each of these areas and present examples in upcoming posts as time permits.

1. Set Based Flexible Design – the traditional approach of development is to determine one approach early in the design phase and push this solution all the way to end. Lean Product Development stresses exploring multiple options early in the development cycle.  As time progresses, the team converges on several capable options in order to drive robust design that meets customer needs.  The team continues to carry these options as long as possible through the process, even through scale-up and customer assessments.  I call this the “Plan B” approach and have seen this be extremely effective in allowing projects to maintain scope and avoiding loop backs while allowing flexible design approaches.
2. Integration Focused Leadership – traditional development stresses that all individual technologies be optimized and then combined at the end due to the apparent high cost of full featured prototypes. Lean product development stresses bringing individual technology components together as soon as possible even at the expense of only meeting a subset of the features.  Lean development is really driven by utilizing bench marking events where multiple technology approaches are brought together and combined.  This allows for assessing system performance early in development and driving towards fast failure and optimum system design.  Another outcome of Integration Focused Leadership is producing early prototypes for customer assessment.  This fosters early interaction between customers and product design teams.
3. Dynamic Cross Functional Teams – traditional development dictates only having the “right” people involved at the “right” time of the development process leading to hand-offs between Marketing, R&D, Commercialization,
   
   Manufacturing and Support/Service teams. Lean Product Development stresses having all parties involved from start to finish of the development process.  The time allocation for each of the areas may ebb and flow (hence “dynamic”) but this leads to having strong team work and diverse thinking throughout the process.  This also minimizes wasteful hand-offs during the development and commercialization processes.
4. Knowledge Sharing/Continuous Learning Process – traditional development stresses vertical R&D, fire walling information, and discarding accumulated knowledge in an effort to protect intellectual property and not waste time in documenting existing information. Lean Product Development stresses reuse of information, continuous improvement and horizontal open innovation.  Knowledge sharing and team collaboration tools are cornerstones in Lean Product Development.  Continuous improvement via training and mobility among technology teams and disciplines is also a key concept and helps to foster open innovation.  
5. Flow/Cadence Driven Development – traditional development stresses resourcing based on priorities (highest resourcing levels when the project reaches critical mass) and stresses loading resources with more projects in an effort to improve employee efficiency and company financial return.
   
   Lean Product Development moves to load level development where more is done in the early phases of development.  This practice encourages developing optimal solutions prior to commercialization.  Lean Product Development also avoids huge surges of resources for troubled projects and allows for innovative environments.  Lean Product Development stresses strong portfolio management and fewer, smaller sized projects so that resources can think creatively and drive efficient completion of development activities. These practices facilitate a rational workload, improved cognitive reasoning and flow in the development factory.

None of these concepts are novel but together make intuitive sense.  I will break down each of these areas in upcoming posts and present the tools in more detail and some examples from various industries and from my own experience to demonstrate how these tools can be leveraged.