David Crawley PhD
- Dramatically reduced product development cycle time at blue-chip semiconductor company.
- Has lectured on Lean product development for startups at Stanford.
- Developed and applied novel transformation methods for change resistant organizations.
- Worked on both the research and the business process improvement side of R&D.
- All 7 Best Practices
- Pre-Meeting Discovery Process
- One-on-One Call with Expert
- Meeting Summary Report
- Post-Meeting Engagement
Lean Product Development
Defined Terms
- Flow
Flow is the notion that work should move from one stage to another without stopping or going back.- Lean
Lean refers to "a system of techniques and activities for running a manufacturing or service operation. The techniques and activities differ according to the application at hand but they have the same underlying principle: the elimination of all non-value-adding activities and waste from the business. Lean enterprise extends this concept through the entire value stream or supply chain: The leanest factory cannot achieve its full potential if it has to work with non-lean suppliers and subcontractors." Subsequently, the principles of Lean manufacturing have been applied to other areas such as product development.
Source: http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/lean/overview/overview.html
- Level
Level is the notion that companies should cross-train individuals to resolve bottlenecks. For example, the design integration engineer should be able to also do design work. That way. if there are bottlenecks in the system at any time you can quickly resolve them by shifting people around.- Pace
Pace is the notion that the product development activity as a whole should follow a rhythm which is synchronized with the rhythm of product releases.- Plan, Do, Check, Act
"Also called: PDCA, plan–do–study–act (PDSA) cycle, Deming cycle, Shewhart cycle
"The plan-do-check-act cycle is a four-step model for carrying out change. Just as a circle has no end, the PDCA cycle should be repeated again and again for continuous improvement.
- Plan. Recognize an opportunity and plan a change.
- Do. Test the change. Carry out a small-scale study.
- Check. Review the test, analyze the results and identify what you’ve learned.
- Act. Take action based on what you learned in the study step: If the change did not work, go through the cycle again with a different plan. If you were successful, incorporate what you learned from the test into wider changes. Use what you learned to plan new improvements, beginning the cycle again."
- Plan. Recognize an opportunity and plan a change.
- Pull
Pull is the notion that work should occur at the behest of the customer. In product development this implies up-front work to understand the market.
- Set-based concurrent engineering (SBCE)
An approach to product development where a team or teams will develop simultaneously several, optional designs for the same product. As the product development process continues, the team will converge on the best possible or best available design from its set of designs. This method is a means of enhancing Flow in product development and of mitigating project risk.- Sprint
"In the Scrum method of agile software development, work is confined to a regular, repeatable work cycle, known as a sprint or iteration. In by-the-book Scrum, a sprint is 30 days long, but many teams prefer shorter sprints, such as one-week, two-week, or three-week sprints."