Lean product development research before 2000

The research base for LPDS started with Liker and Ward´s studies and with their students (Liker & Morgan 2006:8). This resulted in the development of the SBCE model. Sobek had already deepened the knowledge base with a study comparing Toyota´s Product Development System and Chrysler´s emerging platform organization in PD. The most significant contributions were made by James Morgan with his two-and-a-half- year in depth study of Toyota´s automotive body development. Morgan conducted many interviews and gathered information and data from Toyota and its suppliers in the U.S. and Japan. This study laid the foundation of the LPD process comprising thirteen lean practices. These practices and the system model will be discussed throughout the following chapters.

107 The benefits of applying lean approaches to PD were first documented by Clark et al. (1987) in one of the most influential studies in the automotive industry. Several researchers and authors had been citing and interpreting their results and building new theories. Clark and his team studied international differences in PD performance in the auto industry. They found out that the best Japanese companies are able to develop a vehicle of competitive quality in much less time and with far fewer engineering resources than their American or European competitors.

During the 1980s and 1990s a few studies were conducted comparing Japanese and American automotive manufacturers and component suppliers. The studies were conducted by J. Liker, D.K. Sobek, A.C. Ward at the IMVP centre and resulted in a number of articles focusing on LPD. Ward, Liker, Christiano and Sobek (1995) introduced the SBCE system as a new method used in Toyota´s product design. The ‘first paradox’ refers to the TPS which was formalized and popularized by many internal practitioners and external researchers. However, the ‘second paradox’ - the Toyota LPDS - has not as yet achieved the same degree of exposure but is ‘growing slowly and organically’. The authors made one of the first attempts to formalize and make known this process and the system, based on empirical tests of set-based design methods in the Japanese auto industry at companies Toyota, Nissan, Mazda and at U.S. vehicle manufacturers. Furthermore, the authors focus on the interface between automakers and their parts suppliers, because Japanese OEMs outsource about seventy percent of the vehicle content to their suppliers who have a relatively large influence on PD (Ward et al. 1995:45). The specific findings related to SBCE will be discussed later.

An important article related to the framework used for this study is Sobek, Liker and Ward (1998) exploring practices in Toyota´s PD. The authors studied the Toyota system for five years and identified six practices, which they grouped into six organizational mechanisms, and these will be briefly discussed here. The mechanisms emphasise certain specific aspects, which are summarized in the following points:

1. Mutual adjustment – emphasizes importance of face-to-face communication and effective problem-solving meetings applying standardized A3 reports.

2. Direct supervision – emphasizes involvement of supervisors and managers in the details of the engineering design to maintain their deep functional expertise, which supports facilitating coordination across functions.

108 3. Integrative leadership – emphasizes a chief engineer or heavyweight-project

management structure for coordination of project teams.

4. Standard skills – emphasizes developing people´s competency internally, in trainings organized within the company. Intensive mentoring and job rotation play a crucial role in the development of an engineer´s skills and expertise.

5. Standard work processes – emphasize standardization of PD processes and routine work procedures in order to avoid reinventing either the wheel or new processes for each individual project.

6. Design standards – emphasize use of standardized parts across platforms and engineering checklists guiding design work and assuring product manufacturability. Standards create the foundation for continuous improvement in engineering design and also facilitate organizational learning.

From the researcher´s perspective identification of the practices listed above was one of the initial attempts to describe Toyota´s PD and organize its practices into a framework. From this study it is obvious that individual mechanisms and practices play an important role in PD, specifically in terms of cross-functional integration and functional expertise. However, the full potential of practices can be realized only when practices are linked to each other and integrated into a coherent overall system.

An important finding from the Sobek et al. (1998) study is that the key to Japanese success (and at the same time the key to the weakness of the U.S. industry) is the integration of product design and manufacturing process design and the integration between the functions achieved by Toyota. Sobek et al. (1998:48) conclude that Toyota´s mix of practices suits Toyota´s environment, but it may not be suitable for other companies or for other industries: a PD system needs to be uniquely designed and tailored to suit a company’s specific needs.

In their article Kamath and Liker (1994) focus on discovering Japanese-supplier- management strategies by studying best-practices related to PD. In 1992-93 the authors conducted various studies at large Japanese automakers – Toyota, Nissan and Mazda and at their 143 suppliers. Additionally, 189 American suppliers to General Motors, Ford and Chrysler were studied. In this article there are several interesting ideas that will be examined in the later chapters.

109 More valuable ideas about supplier-development teams at Nissan supporting their British suppliers are available in Womack and Jones (1994). The authors propose a new organizational model, the lean enterprise, which complements the German, American and Japanese industrial models. Moreover they recommended that within the lean enterprise model, once the new role of cross-functional product-development teams has been defined, specific tasks such as selecting suppliers, development of products and overseeing routine production should be performed by teams and not by functional departments. In the lean enterprise paradigm the functional departments should identify new knowledge and best practices across the organization and determine the rules for collaboration in the process. Finally, the PD process should be managed, in the lean enterprise, by a new process-management function.

One of the first researchers, studying practices in PD beyond Toyota and focusing on the practical implementation of the lean process into PD, as early as 1991, were Karlsson and Ahlstrom. Karlsson and Ahlstrom (1996) identified a distinctive set of practices and organizational features in PD based on two and half years observations of the lean transformation process at an international manufacturing company producing office equipment. The transformation into PD was facilitated by the authors with a view to identifying hindering and supporting factors for successful transition. The authors conceptualized this LPDS model and identified the following key elements:

 Concurrent Engineering

 Suppliers’ involvement

 Cross-functional teams and collaboration between different functional areas

 Integration of activities rather than coordination of various functions

 Heavy-weight team structure

 Strategic management of development projects

Despite the importance of each individual element, Karlsson and Ahlstrom (1996:283) believe that a company will not achieve lean PD by implementing the principles in part only. The success of a lean transformation requires approaching and implementing these elements as a coherent whole. Moreover, the factors supporting a transition to lean PD include: tight development schedules; close cooperation with a customer; highly competent engineers; and the ongoing active participation of top management.

110 It should be pointed out that this study does not report or use VSM and identification of waste in the PD process. Although these methods are the primary steps in many lean implementation processes they were explicitly published only few years later, focusing on manufacturing in Rother and Shook (2003), administration and office processes in Keyte and Locher (2004) and on PD in Locher (2008).