Lean Development: How to Reach Higher Effectiveness and Efficiency

Abstract

Over the past years many companies have introduced lean elements to optimize their production and assembly processes. As a result of the achievements of lean production systems the lean elements are also increasingly applied in product development (lean development). So far there is little known about how far the elements of lean development are spread as well as their influence on effectiveness and efficiency enhancement. This article will present the results of a study in which 60 mostly German companies of different sizes and from different industries took part. The study identified which elements of lean development were implemented in the development process and which delivered the greatest benefit to it.Keywords Effectiveness Á Efficiency Á Lean development IntroductionDue to changed conditions, manufacturing companies have dealt intensively with the implementation of lean production systems (LPS) over the past few years. A LPS is a company-specific, methodological set of regulations for the comprehensive and integrated design of the companies' processes (Dombrowski et al. 2005). Changed conditions not only influence production but also product development. Comparable sets of regulations for product development (lean development) to enhance effectiveness and efficiency as well as to improve employees' and the organization's abilities are more and more focused. Companies such as Toyota that have already implemented the lean philosophy into product U. Dombrowski Á I.

Trends and Future Research Direction of Lean Product Development

“…Literature review [8,11,[27][28][29][30][31][32] Pure literature review Survey articles [33][34][35] The survey is based on a literature review for a specific problem [36][37][38][39][40][41] Surveys are used for the further development of the conceptual model Theoretical and conceptual papers [1,3,9,[42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58] The theory is based on a literature review [2,[59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66] The theory is based on a survey [7,[67][68]…”

“…Design guidelines [46,79,80] Enablers or components of LPD [3,42,45,61,73,89] Framework [10,19,41,43,56,60,66,67,72,85,87,88] Implementation issues [24,30,38,39,54,58,81,82] Industrial application [2,4,15,16,21,23,26,40,51,68,69,75,86] Literature review [8,11,[27][28][29]31,32] People and knowledge [1,17,22,…”

“…Schulze and Störmer [89] stated that training that gives lean specialists knowledge of traditional engineering skills (i.e., lean thinking, waste analysis, and standardisation) is a management factor enabler for LPD. Dombrowski et al [45] and Tortorella et al [61] changed efforts from the definition of enablers and tried to describe their influence. A total of 19 LPD elements that influence the effectiveness and efficiency of PD were found in [45], while [61] presented relationships between LPD enablers and problems.…”

“…Dombrowski et al [45] and Tortorella et al [61] changed efforts from the definition of enablers and tried to describe their influence. A total of 19 LPD elements that influence the effectiveness and efficiency of PD were found in [45], while [61] presented relationships between LPD enablers and problems.…”

“…[42] A Framework for organizing LPD that consists of 11 Lean PD Components [43] Circular Lean Product-Service Systems Design framework [44] The influence of Lean Development System (LDS) principles on the steps and cross-functions of the PD process [45] Lean development elements impact effectiveness and efficiency improvement.…”