Lean Product Development

© Nathan Soderborg, 2008. All rights reserved.

Lean Product Development

Dr. Nathan SoderborgDesign for Six Sigma Master Black Belt

North America Product Development

Ford Motor Company

WCBF Design for Six Sigma ConferenceLas Vegas, Nevada

February 10, 2008

Background

2© Nathan Soderborg, 2009. All rights reserved.

Presentation Outline

� Introduction to Lean Production

� Allowing the Customer to “Pull” Value from PD

� Pull for improving existing products

� Pull for creating new products & features

� Viewing PD as a Factory

� Knowledge job shop

� Types of waste in the factory

� Learning to See Waste in PD

� Detecting Defects

� Design Review

� FMEA

� Lean Metrics

� How DFSS aligns with Lean PD

Many principles & methods could be

discussed!

Will focus on 2-3 key ideas with examples.


Lean Production

� Lean

The elimination of waste with the goal that all steps in a process add value from the customer’s perspective

� Lean Thinking (Womack & Jones)

� Correctly specify value so you are providing what the customer actually wants

� Identify the value stream for each product family and remove the wasted steps that don't create value but do create muda (waste)

� Make the remaining value-creating steps flow continuously to drastically shorten throughput times

� Allow the customer to pull value from your rapid-response value streams as needed (rather than pushing products toward the customer on the basis of

forecasts)

� Never relax until you reach perfection, which is the delivery of pure value instantaneously with zero muda


Pull Systems

� Lean Principle:

“Allow the customer to pull value from rapid-response value

streams as needed”

� “Pull” in lean production means

� To produce or process an item only when the customer needs

and requests it

� Lean manufacturers design their operations to respond to the

ever-changing requirements of customers

� Such operations avoid the traditional batch-and-queue system many manufacturers must rely on

� Pull systems

� Should be convenient and easy to use

� React to needs—don't anticipate them


Example: Pull in a Manufacturing Process

� A light bulb is set up on a pole at an assembly line; when lit, it is the signal (kanban) to the producing

station to wheel a cart of components to the line

� A full cart is dropped off at the assembly line and an

empty cart is wheeled back to the producing station—

the empty cart is the signal that authorizes the producers to make more parts

� Finished components from the last operation at the producing station are placed directly on the cart—

if there is no cart there is no production

� The process eliminates double handling� Parts are placed on the cart as produced

� Parts are taken off the cart during the first operation at the assembly line and put directly into an assembly


Recently in the news…

“When ____ arrived six months ago, he found ____'s quality

operations bogged down with drawn-out decision making and

interdepartmental finger-pointing.

“If there was a problem with an air conditioning system, for example, the

engineering department might suggest the plant didn't put oil in the unit,

while the plant might say the unit was improperly designed. Weeks of back-

and-forth e-mails would ensue, "and meanwhile, the customer is out there

saying, 'I'm hot,'‚" ____ said.

“____ scrapped the old system, created standard definitions of quality, and

established the view that customer satisfaction starts with a potential

customer's perception of a brand and continues though vehicle ownership and

repurchase.

“He launched dedicated interdepartmental teams to address problems in

minutes over conference tables, not weeks over e-mail.”

—Detroit News, April 14, 2008

Lean Product Development: Customer Pull


Example: Current Product Improvement Pull

� “Every warranty claim received by a dealer is sent to

the plant where the vehicle is built and the issue is

‘mapped back’ to the work station where it might have

originated.” Ford’s Drive One campaign: answers for employees to FAQs on Quality

Customer

brings vehicle

to dealer for

service

Customer Pull

Dealer fixes

issues and

records

information

Information is

sent to plant

immediately for

review

Plant groups

issues and

shares with

engineering

Issues with

highest

frequency are

next up projects

Project Portfolio

More Detail


Product Creation Pull—Enhancing QFD & VOC

� Six Sigma is all about data, but getting data requires

time and data can be incomplete

� Often reveals only Voice of Customer-what can be articulated

� What about Actions, Emotions, Culture of Customer…?

� Lean Product Creation should pull insight from the

customer’s world to the PD team as fast as possible–

avoid the time lag for field results, large surveys, etc.

� Insight: deep, emotional understanding of the customer

—not just what they like and don’t like, but why

� Goes beyond the data to help explain the data

� Asks "What emotional need is so strong, it will cause the

customer to act?"

“An insight is worth a thousand market surveys”—Rechtin and Maier


Methods of Acquiring Insight

� Active Observation

� Immersion: live the life of the other person, go where they go

� Events: e.g., hold clinics with customer/product interaction

� Passive Observation

� Watch customers in context, i.e., in their daily routines

� Identify what irritates, satisfies, challenges, excites

� Surveys & Interviews

� Ask open-ended, thought provoking questions

� Listen actively

� Introspection

� Study the customer, culture, environment

� Imagine living the life of the customer


Example: Auto Industry Insights

Cup Holders

Assembly Line

Connectivity

Minivans

4th door

Intermittent Windshield Wipers


Lean Product Development: View PD as a Factory

� “In an engineering process, raw material consists of information—customer needs, past

product characteristics, competitive product

data, engineering principles, and other inputs are transformed through the product

development process into the complete engineering of a product that will be built by

manufacturing.” (p.17)

� “[A] lean PD system is a knowledge work job shop, which a company can continuously

improve by using adapted tools used in repetitive manufacturing processes to eliminate

waste and synchronize cross-functional activities.” (p.20)

—Morgan and Liker


Seven Types of Waste (Ohno)

� Overproduction (production ahead of demand)

� Transportation (moving products that is not actually required to perform the processing)

� Waiting (waiting for the next production step)

� Inventory (all components, work-in-progress and finished product not being processed)

� Motion (people or equipment moving or walking more than is required to perform the processing)

� Over Processing (due to poor tool or product design creating activity)

� Defects (the effort involved in inspecting for and fixing defects)

—See Womack & Jones p. 352


Seven Types of Waste (Ohno)

� Overproduction (production ahead of demand)

� Transportation (moving products that is not actually required to perform the processing)

� Waiting (waiting for the next production step)

� Inventory (all components, work-in-progress and finished product not being processed)

� Motion (people, equipment moving or walking more than required to perform the processing)

� Over Processing (due to poor tool or product design creating activity)

� Defects (the effort involved in inspecting for and fixing defects)

—See Womack & Jones p. 352

Extra studies & analyses,

unnecessary prototypes

Redundant, disconnected data systems, unsynchronized work

Seeking approvals from more

than those accountable

Delays: for tests & results, approvals, inputs from interfaces

Information sharing: ineffective

handoffs, too wide a distribution

Presentation processing, un-

needed analysis detail/prediction

Test failures and response,

warranty costs and response

PD Waste


Lean Product Development: Seeing Waste

� Visual management is a key element of lean systems

� Quick communication of information about a process or facility using visual aids

� “Learning to See” waste in the process (Rother & Shook)

� In PD, visual aids are not necessarily posted on the

office wall, instead they are attention-getting elements

of the process

� Events that bring items to a team’s attention

� Documents that drive critical questions and provide institutional memory

� Metrics that highlight waste


Example: Seeing Defects or Failure Modes

� During reliability seminars at Ford, Dr. Tim Davis

(Henry Ford Technical Fellow) opened with a description

of PD as a “Failure Mode Factory”

� Many in attendance did not want to accept this description…

� However, because people and systems are not perfect and they operate with incomplete knowledge, failure modes are an

inevitable PD outcome

� Failure Modes can originate at any process point:

poor understanding of customer, wrong system characterization,

wrong analysis or optimization, bad test assumptions, etc.

� So it is critical to institute ways to detect (see) them as

quickly as possible—before getting to the customer,

ideally before escaping to the next process step


Example: Seeing Failure Modes (events)

� Toyota’s Design Review Based on Failure Mode (DRBFM)

� Thoroughly discuss design plans to discover undetected problems and formulate countermeasures to solve those

problems one by one

� “Pay close attention to intentional and incidental changes in new development items.”

� “Promote discussions based on FMEA and FTA results.”

—Shimizu, Imagawa,

Noguchi, SAE 2003-

01-2877


Example: Seeing Failure Modes (documents)

� Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) provides a single, unified framework for seeing failure modes during the PD process

� Let the columns of the FMEA…

� Organize work for a product/project team

� Point to the right tools & methods

� Set the agenda for design reviews

When viewed as a backbone for the engineering effort, FMEA becomes a lean

organization tool to replace process overlays that can

multiply out of control

Project DeliverablesVoice of

Customer

FMEA

Item/

FunctionPotential

EffectS. Class Mechanism O. Current D. RPN

Design Ctrls. Program Specific Institutional

Potential

Failure Mode

Recommended Actions(Counter Measures)

Product History


Example: Seeing Failure Modes (metrics)

� In addition to field performance metrics (lagging indicators),

put improved metrics INTO and ON the PD process

� INTO: Failure Mode Detection

� More & better design standards, based on science and experience

(Good standards eliminate need for most kinds of analysis)

� More & better computer simulations that mimic physical tests

(Good simulations eliminate physical tests and high associated costs)

� ON: Process Health

� Number of late part changes (after design freeze)

� Percent of parts in bill of material first time through without

revision


Lean Product Development: DFSS Alignment

Key Concepts of DFSS

� Project-based framework

� Data-based decision making culture

� Science & statistics-based engineering

� Elements� Define: Demonstrate Connection

to Customer

� Characterize: Develop Transfer Functions, Predictive Models

� Optimize: Achieve System Level Robustness Optimization

� Verify: Demonstrate reliability

Even out work flow, attack

priorities and bottlenecks

Allow customers to pull value

from the product

Speed design analysis and see

failure modes faster

Reduce rework due to mistaken

or incomplete analyses

Reduce waiting time for informed

decisions

Reduce occurrence and severity of failure modes

Lean Connection

Prevent customer defects,

learn how to improve tests


Potential DFSS Project Deliverables

Institute technical training

Improve detection

measurement

system/gage RR

Add/intensify noise

content in a test or

simulation to better excite

failure modes

Develop/improve a

transfer function (model)

to discover failure modes

analytically

Create a new detection

event or standard

Develop/improve a

customer-correlated

metric, target

Replace a test or

simulation event with a

design standard

Replace a hardware test

by a virtual simulation

Move a detection event

from a system to

subsystem or component

level

Improve design to reduce

severity of a failure mode

Institute updated

procedures and error-

proofing to prevent

mistakes

Institute generic robust

design guidelines

Institute product-specific

design improvements,

e.g., optimize for

robustness

Implement a new, robust

concept

Increase Detection Capability

Move Detection Capability Earlier

Make Designs More Reliable/Robust

Key Insight: A DFSS project is a job in the PD

“knowledge work job shop.”

Estimating the value of DFSS

projects in monetary value can

be difficult and waste time. The

real deliverable is knowledge

that makes PD more lean.


REFERENCES� Tim Davis, “Science, engineering, and statistics,” Applied Stochastic Models

in Business and Industry, Vol. 22, Issue 5-6, pp. 401-430, 2006.

� James M. Morgan and Jeffrey K. Liker, The Toyota Product Development System: Integrating People, Process and Technology, Productivity Press, 2006.

� Eberhard Rechtin and Mark Maier, The Art of Systems Architecting, CRC Press, 1997.

� Mike Rother and John Shook, Learning to See: Value Stream Mapping to Add Value and Eliminate MUDA, Lean Enterprise Institute, 1999.

� Hirokazu Shimizu, Toshiyuki Imagawa, Hiroshi Noguchi, Reliability Problem Prevention Method for Automotive Components—Development of GD3 Activity and DRBFM (Design Review Based on Failure Mode), JSAE 20037158, SAE 2003-01-2877.

� James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Simon and Schuster, 2003.

© Nathan Soderborg, 2008. All rights reserved.

Appendix


Toyota Product Development System (Morgan & Liker)

� Process� Establish customer-defined value to separate value-added from waste� Front-load the product development process to explore thoroughly

alternative solutions while there is maximum design space� Create a level product development process flow� Utilize rigorous standardization to reduce variation, and create flexibility

and predictable outcomes

� Skilled People� Develop a chief engineer system to integrate development from start to

finish� Organize to balance functional expertise and cross-functional integration� Develop towering competence in all engineers� Fully integrate suppliers into the PD system� Build in learning and continuous improvement� Build a culture to support excellence and relentless improvement

� Tools & Technology� Adapt technologies to fit your people and process� Align your organization through simple visual communication � Use powerful tools for standardization and organizational learning

Education

Lean Product Development