The Lean Analytics Association team is excited to announce the publication of its first book, Lean Product Development Best Practices, a result of a one-year collaborative project carried out with the participation of 10 innovative companies which have obtained a variety of business benefits by implementing lean thinking in product development.
This book includes ten industrial cases which describe in detail the efforts each company had to undertake to successfully embed lean principles, tools and techniques in its product development and innovation processes. This book was designed around the lean principle “visual communication”, including over 250 colorful illustrations, tables, artworks and photos of actual tools and techniques used in these 10 companies. If you are involved in or eager to find out more about the practical application of lean thinking in innovation and product development, then this book is the perfect choice for you as it provides over 40 different best practices from successful lean practitioners with years of hands-on experience.
The idea behind the publication of this book emerged from numerous conversations the LAA team had with many lean professionals, passionate to know more. To know more and learn about lean trends in innovation and product development. This inspired us to launch our first Best Practices Discovery Project, in which we applied the LAA’s Lean Innovation Model to map the lean thinking practices implemented in product development by these 10 innovative companies coming from a variety of industries, and to find out how they roadmapped their journey to obtain different business benefits such as:
- Delivering products/services faster to market
- Becoming more effective in learning and sharing knowledge
- Optimizing and stabilizing development processes
- Focusing on customer value
- Reducing waste
- Achieving greater sustainability
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Road-mapping where to go next
- And much more
Therefore, this book came to life thanks to the curiosity of people like yourself, driven to continuously improve. But before we invite you to read further, we would like to shed some light on the background work that led to the documentation of this exciting collection of the 10 industrial success stories of seven European and three American participating companies.
The Lean Product Development Best Practices book is divided into two main parts; the theoretical fundamentals (part one) and the practical application (part two). This provides a structure and natural flow of the content throughout the book and ensures the reader is familiar with the basics of lean product development and innovation, before submerging into the industrial cases of lean application.
The first part of the book (Chapters 1 and 2) starts with the overview of the lean history and guides the reader through the essentials of lean manufacturing, lean product development and lean innovation, to conclude with the overview of the Lean Innovation Model. This model is intended to serve as a guide to develop an integrated vision for companies to start or complement their lean product development journey. In this book, we have used the Lean Innovation Model to structurally discover, document and present the different best practices captured during the interviews.
The second part of the book (Chapters 3 to 12) is entirely dedicated to the ten industrial cases of lean implementation and application in product development. Each chapter describes the best practices of a company, following the same structure throughout the chapters for a logical and smooth reading experience. Each chapter starts with the company’s introduction, its first steps and an overview of its lean product development journey. The following sections, then, focus on four key areas:
- Strategy and Performance
- Skilled People and Collaboration
- Efficient Process and Knowledge-Based Environment
- Continuous Improvement and Change
The chapters conclude by pointing out the key challenges, the lessons learned and the impact lean product development had and still has on business.
We hope this book with its colorful illustrations, diagrams and tables will positively complement your understanding of lean product development and impact the evolution of your lean journey. For those who are new to lean product development, we hope you will find not only the inspiration to embark on the lean journey, but also the practical ideas and models that will help you guide the implementation in your organization.
Order your copy today or get in touch if you are interested in reviewing the book!
