CURRENT ISSUE
| Cover Story |
| Columns |
| Taking Lean to the Development Department |
| Lean and Green | |
| By Walter O’Dowd | |
| Thursday, 15 March 2007 | |
 Lean product development is a natural extension of lean manufacturing. Now, manufacturers are beginning to realize the very same principles and tools that improved productivity in the plant and throughout the company can also be applied to the new-product development process. By incorporating the same proven-effective concepts, not only does a lean approach make better use of the talents of a company’s highly paid engineers, it will also result in better designs entering the production shop, and ultimately better consumer products. Lean product development is a natural extension of lean manufacturing. After all, what is created on the shop floor was originally conceived within the offices of the design engineers. Unless the product development department generates products that are easy to manufacture and that truly meet the needs of external customers, the production department and the entire company suffer. So, creating a superior quality product, delivering it on time and keeping costs low should begin with the initial stages of product design. History of Lean Manufacturing More than 50 years ago, Toyota set out to transform its automotive production system with the goal of improving quality, cost and delivery. The resulting lean manufacturing process accomplished those goals. The central principles guiding its development were to consume fewer resources and to be efficient with how the work was done. The idea was never to stress employees to the breaking point by telling them to work harder and faster to gain advantage. In fact, the new process garnered more employee satisfaction because workers accomplished more by performing tasks in a more streamlined way. The end-user benefited as well, because the lean system allowed for product delivery in the form customers wanted it, when they wanted it and, because of minimal waste, at a cost savings to them. Changes in Lean Development In the past, much has been written about lean manufacturing and its growing popularity, but there has been little discussion about a lean approach to industry’s classic engineering design process. Currently, there are two excellent new books on the market that are based on Toyota’s methods: Product Development for the Lean Enterprise by Michael N. Kennedy and The Toyota Product Development System by James M. Morgan and Jeffrey K. Liker. In Product Development for the Lean Enterprise, Kennedy provides some thought-provoking statistics. He states that, in contrast to the typical U.S. company, “Toyota had a four-times increase in development productivity, two- to three-times decrease in development costs, two- to 10-times increase in innovation and a two- to five-times decrease in development risk.” How can two approaches be so dissimilar, producing such diverse results? It begins with a fundamental philosophical difference in what is the most valued component within the product development system. It seems that most U.S. companies’ systems are structure-based, often relying heavily on project management software, whereas the Toyota system is knowledge-based. In other words, Toyota values the intelligence of its individual employees over all else, and it shows in the way it does business. Toyota’s system involves placing responsibility for personal performance with individuals. The company believes in placing one person in charge of the overall product development – usually a senior development engineer who is knowledgeable about each step in the process. He is normally one of the most valuable employees in the company, oversees everything and coordinates everyone without using extreme documentation. He simply is aware of what is happening and clearly defines objectives along the way. Competent engineering personnel are given personal responsibility for project goals. In other words, concept and design experts do the work that is aligned with their skill sets, and they function like entrepreneurs who manage their own little businesses. Each piece is part of the whole. Every person within each “little business” or team works on the highest function they are capable of handling. To assure this occurs, any less-skilled work that can be delegated to an employee within the department or to another department is taken out of the hands of someone who needs to concentrate on higher-skill-level work. Lean Development Tools Assigning the right person to the right task and giving them the latitude to do their jobs without unnecessary distractions is the soft side of lean. Equally important is the hard side of lean. This involves specific tools such as value stream-mapping – which first identifies all steps in the product-design process, including those that add value and those that do not – and then improves or eliminates the non-value steps. Another streamlining tool to ensure work keeps flowing is the Toyota-developed strategy of parallel development. It can be illustrated with a company that is charged with coming up with a new way of making bicycles. Three different engineering teams are formed to develop a new steering system, a new drive system and new bicycle accessories. An overall development engineer oversees all three teams. One team develops three or four alternatives to the traditional bicycle handlebars, another team creates a number of alternatives to the standard pedals and chain system and the final team generates ideas for new bicycle accessory items. At some point, the senior development engineer requests the best idea from each group so the design process can move forward. If the proposed idea from the drive train team does not work for the current project, then the team can simply present one of the other ideas it has been working on simultaneously. With parallel development, the conceptualizing process need not start over because the original focus had been on only one product that ultimately did not pan out. This built-in fallback plan allows the work to stay on schedule. Also, if the steering team creates four alternatives and only one is used, then the three other options can go into a steering system inventory. The next time the company wants to develop an alternative to bicycle handlebars, they already have some options to work from and do not have to start from scratch. U.S. System of Development Unlike the Toyota lean product development system, which is knowledge-based, the typical U.S. product development system is structure-based. In other words, many North American companies place a high value on the structural tools at their disposal – like their project management system, which dictates step-by-step procedures to be followed to get the job done. Unfortunately, this type of a system often creates extra work for highly skilled employees that is quite unrelated to the actual type of work they were hired to do. In Product Development for the Lean Enterprise, Kennedy related that when he asked Toyota engineers and engineering managers how much of their time they spent “creating value or creating knowledge or doing engineering,” the average answer was approximately 80 percent. When he asked those with comparable job titles in large U.S. companies the same question, the average answer was less than 20 percent. Although engineers everywhere may have comparable job titles with comparable salaries, only those in lean enterprises are spending a majority of their time putting their education and unique product knowledge to work for their employers. Many U.S. engineers are plugged into a system that requires them to follow a project software scheduling tool that dictates what they should do and when they should report back. The demands for documentation cause them to spend long hours creating spreadsheets and attending countless meetings. The same U.S. product development engineer who is accustomed to a step-by-step procedural process is also likely to be used to developing one product idea at a time. In contrast to a lean approach, which allows for the development of multiple ideas in tandem for positive workflow, a traditional linear product development system can be inflexible and problematic. Indeed, a structure-based process has many flaws. At some point, the shortcomings of a traditional product development system may lead to a desire for change, especially when more leaders realize the process is not working as well as it should be. When they acknowledge their products are not right, they are getting out late, they are low quality and/or they are hard to make, they will acknowledge something different needs to be done. To Get the Ball Rolling Training and education are the biggest tools needed to identify and implement alternative ways of developing a product. Consultants who specialize in lean enterprise and who can adapt systems specifically to suit development engineers are instrumental to the conversion process. The first step a consultant takes when working with a company to improve its product development department is to assess the current state of operations. The consultant conducts a series of interviews, does process mapping, makes observations and attends meetings to determine how people are spending their time. It generates a report of the findings, and reviews it with the company’s executive management. At this point, the consultant assists management to envision where the company wants to be. Together they develop a road map of how to get there. During the process, skill sets are matched to tasks. If it is determined that someone’s skills are not perfectly suited to the position or department they are in, they are retrained or moved to more appropriate positions. The purpose is not to eliminate positions, but to reduce overtime and stress for salaried employees. It is to decrease the number of mistakes, miscommunications and redundancies that exist, especially where two engineers are doing practically the same thing. The ultimate goal of a lean system is to use all resources, including human resources, more effectively. Rewards of Lean Development Those accustomed to working in a documentation-driven environment where reporting progress is almost as important as the progress actually being achieved will need to adjust to a flexible lean culture, but the benefits are great. Once a company changes over its product development process to a lean system, design engineers will find themselves better focused on the innovative work they are best qualified to do. Their product output will be greater without the stress and overtime, and they will be happier. Many manufacturing executives have already adapted Toyota’s lean manufacturing system to streamline their production process on the shop floor. But those who have a life-long learner philosophy realize problems and bottlenecks still plague the corporate offices, from administrative support on up to senior design engineers. If an operation adapts the lean system enterprisewide – and in the product development department, in particular – both the concrete walkers and carpet walkers will benefit from a more efficient work environment. Ultimately, the result will be higher productivity, happier customers and greater company success in today’s competitive marketplace. Walter O’Dowd is a mechanical engineer and has managed many product design engineers during his career. As a consultant with Business Engineering in Northbrook, Ill., he strives to adapt the tools of lean enterprise to a company’s engineering services. For more information, please call 847-824-0809 or visit the website at www.busnengg.com. |
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