Lean Product
Development
Companies have embraced lean concepts and supply
chain systems in order to drive down product costs and improve supply chain
performance. Lean thinking concentrates on eliminating waste in the three value
streams of concept to production launch,
raw materials to finished product, and customer
order to delivery. We have found that much of the unnecessary waste in
manufacturing, logistics, and administrative processes is actually induced by
poor designs committed to during the product development process – the concept to production launch value
stream.
The Impact
of Poor Designs
The Institute for Lean Design characterizes the waste
resulting from poor designs as “evil
ings” – excessive training,
inspecting, and verifying. The challenge for an effective concept to production launch value stream is to design products
that can be manufactured and assembled correctly the first time they move into
production.
My definition of a poor design is where the product
is overly complex and could easily be assembled incorrectly. A product with a
poor design will require overly detailed work instructions, extensive operator
training, and often have many inspection points to insure that the production
process is tightly controlled. Product engineers do not purposely develop poor
designs. Instead, the traditional product development process is not tightly
linked to internal customers such as manufacturing or outside customers such as
contract manufacturers.
A Solution through Collaboration
The solution is to leverage multi-disciplined and
collaborative new product development teams at the concept stage for any new
product. These teams should have representation from all the major disciplines
within the extended value stream. Active participation from customers,
marketing, sales, supply chain management, manufacturing, purchasing, and
suppliers will drive the following lean behaviors:
·
Maximize
the use of common materials, parts, and platforms
·
Minimize the investment in product specific capital equipment
and tooling
·
Leverage
design simplification and standardized processes
·
Improve
the utilization of shared capital equipment and modular designs
·
Support
a mass customization strategy
·
Reduce
quality defects, rework, scrap, and engineering changes
·
Minimize
field service failures and reduce costs of maintenance and repair
Success at
Boeing
Many high performance organizations have adopted lean principles to develop higher quality products at a lower cost and do it in half the time that was required only a few years ago. For example, Boeing adopted lean product development concepts in the design of three major assemblies for the C-17 Globemaster III Airlifter:
1. The new horizontal stabilizer has
90% fewer parts, is 20% lighter, requires 70% fewer tools, and costs 50% less
to produce.
2. The redesigned main landing gear pod
has 45% fewer parts and can be installed in 80% less time with 90% fewer
defects.
3. The cargo door jamb assembly was redesigned
to require 600 fewer assembly hours, eliminate four crane moves, and remove
five critical path span days.
Summary
Much of the waste in manufacturing, logistics, and
administrative processes is actually induced by poor designs committed to
during the product development process. Applying lean principles to the concept to production launch value
stream has led to products with fewer parts, higher quality, lower overall
costs, reduced number of engineering changes, ease of manufacturability, and
reduced overall field support costs. The net result is higher customer
satisfaction and more profitability for organizations that embrace lean product
development concepts.
To learn more about
lean product development, contact