Learning methodologies to diffuse lean product development to industries

Abstract

Every company strives to come-up with innovative products that satisfy customer requests efficiently and effectively. The principles and working methods of Lean thinking have been suggested in literature for companies to optimize stakeholders' interests throughout their product development (PD) process. However, the application of the Lean PD remains unclear from practitioner's perspective. As a consequence, there is a low level of awareness about it and its associated elements. This paper first identifies and presents key challenges and gaps that exist to implement Lean PD in practice, using some of the results of a field study done in Italy. Then, learning methodologies that are developed to fill practical gaps will be presented along with the results achieved in terms of increasing awareness about lean product development. © 2012 International Federation for Information Processing.