Product development can – and should – benefit from the same efficiency and productivity gains that we see in manufacturing and production. The product development process is often very wasteful and expensive, complex and multi-faceted, and information does not flow in one direction, but goes back and forward many times.
How then, can you apply the Lean approach to business, which has traditionally been used for manufacturing, to product development? The key is to recognise that product development is not really that unique – it is still a business process with inputs and outputs and adding value is a key objective. Not only does Lean thinking help to identify and minimise waste, the resulting efficiency and quality improvements should be more than noticeable.

Eliminate waste
There is usually a lot of ‘waste’ in the product development, it is just not always as visible as in manufacturing processes or we’ve conditioned ourselves to accept it. By applying Lean, companies can reduce the waste of unnecessary errors, redoing work, doing too much work and endless waiting.
The trick is to take a pre-emptive approach rather than a reactionary one. Preventing product failures at the beginning and then at every step of the design process means you do not have to fix them later. Maintaining a comprehensive database of product failures ‘in the field’ and analysing them to find the root causes will prevent future mistakes. It is a mistake to assume that product failure is always the fault of the manufacturing process: what if the design is faulty? But eliminating waste in design, the beginning of the process, makes the manufacturing process much easier and cheaper. If you build in ‘error proofing’ and quality into every step of the design process, you avoid passing on defects.

More speed, less time and effort
To get a product to market speedily, it is not enough to simply streamline the manufacturing process. Applying the Lean approach to product development will improve speed to market, decrease overall time and effort to develop new products, and increase the number of new products developed. Lean product development means that companies expend less time and energy by:

• Formalising a robust design review process and making it written and explicit rather than verbal and implicit.
• Keeping a close eye on quality at each stage of the design process to avoid passing on design flaws to the next design step.
• Enabling manufacturers and suppliers they work with determine and control their own resources, costs and schedules within the required parameters.
• Making the progress and performance of design process visible.

Standardise to streamline and simplify
Standardising your design operation may sound like inserting rigidity and making innovation much more difficult. But the result of standardisation is actually more flexibility. A Lean product development strategy attempts to reuse as many as possible of previously successful formulas, recipes, knowledge, and parts. This makes the quality and timing of the outcome so much more predictable. Lean companies:

• employ proven design techniques that are standardised and modular,
• attempt to use generic parts,
• if appropriate, use configuration software to reduce engineer workload.

If a company wants to customise a product, then, all it needs to do is make minor, fast changes to a set and standardised ‘base’, rather than starting from scratch with a brand-new and time-consuming product development process.

Include all players in the process
It is easy to do product design in isolation. But once the product is on the shelves, it needs to sell not to the designer but to the customer. The lean approach is pre-emptive here too: it pays to understand what the customer defines as value from the beginning. Getting it right the first time means no expensive design changes later. The customer should be involved throughout the design process, from inception to each stage along the way. Doing this will mean:

• The product will be useful in the real world.
• The customer will feel a sense of ownership of the process and of the product.
• The product is both more affordable and more functional.

It also pays to remember that the ultimate shape of the product is determined not by design, but by manufacturing. Just as the Lean approach includes customers from the beginning; it also incorporates members of the manufacturing team in the design process. Together, product development and manufacturing teams can plan for modular assembly, and quality and reliability. When all the elements, and even the limitations, of the manufacturing process are known beforehand, unpleasant surprises can be eliminated.

A Lean future
The Lean approach is the future of product development. Lean will also contribute to sustainability. For example, Lean design criteria will ensure that the product as well as the packaging can be recyclable, that the packaging will be easy to lift up and transport. Furthermore, Lean is a human potential-driven approach. Continuous improvement is built into every stage of the design process, and everyone involved feels as if they are making an important contribution to the final product.

*Danie Vermeulen is the CEO for Kaizen Institute New Zealand, which focuses on Lean management practices in the areas of quality, costs, logistics, staff motivation, safety, technology and environment. It assists private and public sector organisations to become streamlined, eliminate waste and increase efficiency, to foster their short-term survival and long-term success. dvermeulen@kaizen.com