01
Dec
As a spin-off from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, LAA aims to conduct cutting-edge research to discover the trends, challenges, and business impact when organizations implement lean thinking in the innovation process. We believe our research can raise the awareness and inspire practitioners around the world to start or refresh their ongoing lean journey to become better, faster and more customer-centric through the implementation of lean innovation best practices.
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is one of the key methodologies used to start a lean journey. It has been successfully applied in manufacturing processes and is now becoming increasingly used in the innovation and product development processes to reduce cycle time and identify improvement opportunities. It also provides a simple and quick way to visualize all activities that deliver value and eliminate those that generate waste.
Organisations are continuously pressured to launch new products and services to gain competitive advantage and satisfy highly demanding global market. And most of this pressure is directed towards product development teams, where majority of organisations still follow traditional or so called stage-gate processes. Although stage-gate process works, it is not flexible enough and tends to constrain creativity and innovation.