Impact of Lean Development System Implementation on the Product Development Process

Enterprises react to changing conditions in product development with the implementation of Lean Development Systems. Lean offers a guideline for eliminating waste and increasing customer value in all processes. In particular, Lean development has been introduced to improve efficiency, effectiveness and the skills of staff and organization within product development. Enterprises like Toyota, which develop and work according to lean principles, are able to develop products in significant shorter time-to-markets with higher quality and lower costs. However, implementing Lean causes remarkable changes in product development. To identify these changes the impact of lean development principles on phases and cross functions of the product development process is examined. Based on literature research the impact is evaluated by means of a three-stage-process. Afterwards results are summarized and rated. To conclude, measures concerning future actions are outlined based on the previous rating.