A Conceptual Framework in Lean

National Conference on Design for Product Life Cycle, Feb 17-18, 2006, BITS Pilani

A Conceptual Framework for Lean New Product Development
G. Anand

Rambabu Kodali*

Lecturer, Mechanical Engineering Group, Birla Institute of Technology & Science,
Pilani, Rajasthan 333 031, India, [e-mail]
*Professor and Group Leader, Mechanical Engineering Group and Engineering Technology Group, Birla Institute of
Technology & Science, Pilani, Rajasthan 333 031, India, [e-mail], [e-mail], Corresponding author

ABSTRACT
Recent years have seen great strides in the reorganization of manufacturing around the lean manufacturing (LM) philosophy. The prime reason being that in most of the markets, demand has slowed or declined and the cost competitiveness of an organization has considerably increased due to competition. LM has paved the way for improving the competitive position of an organization by drastically reducing the wastes in manufacturing. Similar condition prevails in the field of product development and manufacturers have become more concerned about the efficiency in developing new products. They have been facing profitability problems due to the high costs of developing and manufacturing many new products or product variations. These organizations have recognized that effective product realization requires flexibility and leanness across the whole process of design to manufacture. The advocates of lean philosophy have already emphasized on the application of lean principles organization wide, but due importance was not given till recent years. Now, researchers have started applying the principles of LM to product development process and are inundating the literature with topics like wastes in product development process, tools and techniques, barriers etc.
But none of them have discussed about a systematic framework for making the existing product development process leaner. Hence in this paper,

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