Performance measurement of a lean product development process

Abstract

Over the past few years, organizations have faced pressure from stakeholders to implement lean principles in their product development processes. However, the existing methods are not capable of measuring the benefits of adopting lean initiatives in the product development process. This research aims to develop a performance measurement model that can measure the effects of implementing lean in the engineering process. Engineering effort is analyzed in order to identify hidden wastes (e.g. inventory in the form of information about product specifications or engineering errors) in the engineering process. The model has been implemented in a civil design process of an engineering consultant company to validate the general applicability of the new model. The implementation of the model provides visibility on the waste hidden in the engineering process and quantifies that waste. The most significant contribution of this research is the development of new performance metrics and a decomposition chart. Finally, performance metrics are properly linked and the model treats lean as a holistic system, quantitatively measuring performance at different organizational levels.

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]…”

“…Nonetheless, various organisations encounter difficulties when deploying LPD. Stakeholder pressure to apply lean principles to PD processes has recently increased [9], and this has led to a growing literature about LPD [10]. This article presents findings from a systematic review of the literature on LPD covering 2011 to 2022.…”

A Review of Lean Methodology Application and Its Integration in Medical Device New Product Introduction Processes

“…As is the case with Lean manufacturing, metrics are also essential to the success of Lean in NPI, serving as the basics for process characterisation and benchmarking efforts [83][84][85]. A review of 15 years of VSM literature analysed 57 papers and concluded that problems measuring processes were the most common impediment to the success of VSM, highlighting the importance of metrics [86].…”

“…The Lean implementation metrics were distinguished from program performance metrics. The most comprehensive practical guidance on measuring VA and NVA in an NPI setting was proposed in other works which distinguished between wasteful and non-wasteful iterations [86].…”

“…The automotive industry is the leading application of Lean NPI followed closely by the aerospace industry, from which much of the 21st-century research is derived [52]. It was suggested that the lag in the uptake of Lean NPI methods may be 10-15 years in other engineering settings, a possible explanation for the lack of publications [86]. The confidential nature of medical device organisations may be another reason for the lack of publications [37].…”