CAREL, an Italian HVAC-R company (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration) started its Lean Product Development Journey back in 2009 with the reorganization and introduction of new compact teams. The Lean Analytics Association (LAA) team carried out an interview and Gemba Walk at their facilities to document their lean product development best practices and discover how the application of lean thinking in the product development process...
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Kane Alward is General Manager of Product Development at Fisher & Paykel Appliances; a company that designs, develops and produces premium home appliances for kitchen and laundry. Being responsible for over 350 product development professionals, Kane has years of hands-on experience from product and technology strategy to lean leadership and implementation for a global business with revenue over $1 Billion.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances completely changed from stage-gate to a lean “Learning-First” Product Development philosophy and system in 2006. Since then, the company’s 350 designers, engineers, and scientists have driven significant improvements in Product Development productivity and quality from a lean focus on the knowledge required to deliver value to the customer.
Traditionally product development has focused on selecting one concept at the early stage and then further develop it. This perhaps is what might feel more natural: focusing all our efforts in one direction so no time is wasted on resources eliminating many ideas that will never make it to the market anyway. On the other hand, Set-Based Thinking could be considered the opposite approach to this latter traditional way as it...
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Telefónica, one of the world’s leading telecommunication services providers, is a pioneer in applying Lean Startup methodology to speed the innovation outputs as a large organization. In 2011, Telefónica began to position itself as a digital telecommunications company and started to build digital products. Since then, Telefónica has followed the Lean Startup methodology and has significantly reduced cycle times and development costs, while ensuring developers are continuously interacting with the end customers during the development. All these changes have led to a significant cultural transformation within the company which encourages customers’ integration from the early development stage and nurture their employees’ talent to become intrapreneurs.
