Value-based product development: refocusing lean

Abstract

Lean is not minimizing cost, cycle time, or waste. Lean is maximizing value. In product development (PD), sometimes getting lean requires doing more, not less. Providing a preferred combination of product performance, affordability and availability requires a lean PD process. Product value is affected not only by the presence of necessary activities in the PD process but also by the way those activities work together to ensure that they use and produce right information. Lean PD requires the right information at the right place at the right time.