Applying Lean Manufacturing Principles to New Product Development

摘要

The focus of this article is to demonstrate the relationships between lean manufacturing (LM) principles and integrated new product development (INPD) method. Comparison and analysis of several critical factors show high degree of resemblances between the two sets of factors. A number of hypotheses regarding similarities between LM and INPD factors were developed and tested. Survey data strongly supports the hypotheses regarding similarities between the two methods. Statistical results also indicate compared with conventional companies, by utilizing INPD, lean manufacturing organizations are able to develop new products with 63% better quality, 52% less development time, 45% less development cost, and 36% less manufacturing cost.