Lean product development

产品开发（PD）包括将想法转化为可销售产品所需的一系列活动。在日益复杂、动态的环境中，高质量新产品的快速周转已成为当务之急。加拿大的情况就是如此，不断变化的客户偏好和缩短的上市时间窗口是投资PD的主要驱动因素。2008年，加拿大在制造业的PD领域投资368亿美元，平均16%的收入来自新产品，而美国的这一比例为30%。对于消费者驱动型公司来说，PD显然是一个关键的竞争杠杆。数十年的PD研究已经产生了大量的工具、技术和最佳实践，公司有无数的机会从他们在PD中的失败和成功中学习。那么，为什么持续的PD成功仍然是一个难以捉摸的目标？首先，PD非常复杂且消耗资源。再加上不断变化的客户偏好、本地和全球竞争、监管变化、技术进步和组织约束，很明显，成功地生产出源源不断的创新产品将始终是一项挑战。平均1/7的产品成功，44%的项目没有达到盈利目标；这些统计数据表明，投入在PD上的资源造成了巨大的浪费。为了解决这个问题，精益生产的原则最近被成功地应用于非制造业领域。精益理念倡导一种系统的方法，通过持续改进，在顾客的拉动下，追求完美，来识别和消除浪费。迄今为止，很少有研究确定如何将精益生产原则转化为PD。本研究的首要目标是利用精益原则开发成功和可持续的PD的工具和技术。PD系统是根据其基本要素进行组织的：a)人员，b)过程，c)工具和技术。成功的PD高度依赖于这三个相互关联的要素的有效设计、整合和协调。第四个要素，d)绩效测量，是确保精益工作的必要条件。

Product development (PD) consists of the set of activities required to convert an idea into a marketable product. In an increasingly complex, dynamic environment, rapid turnaround of high quality new products has become an imperative. This is certainly the case in Canada, where changing customer preferences and decreasing time to market windows are the main drivers for investing in PD. In 2008, Canada invested $36.8 billion dollars in PD in the manufacturing sector, and an average of 16% of revenues came from new products, compared to 30% in the US. PD is clearly a critical competitive lever for consumer-driven firms. Decades of research in PD have produced a plethora of tools, techniques, and best practices and firms have had countless opportunities to learn from their failures and successes in PD. Why then does consistent PD success continue to be an elusive goal? For one, PD is very complex and resource-consuming. Add to this changing customer preferences, local and global competition, regulatory changes, technological advances, and organizational constraints, and it is evident that successfully producing a steady stream of innovative products will always remain a challenge. An average of 1/7 products succeed and 44% of projects do not meet their profitability goals; these statistics show that resources invested in PD result in a huge amount of waste. To deal with this, the principles of lean manufacturing have recently been applied with success to non-manufacturing areas. The lean philosophy advocates a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement by following the product at the pull of the customer, in pursuit of perfection. To date, little research has been done to determine how to translate lean manufacturing principles to PD. The overarching goal of this research is to develop tools and techniques for successful and sustainable PD using lean principles. The PD system is organized in terms of its basic elements: a) people, b) process, and c) tools and technology. Successful PD highly depends on the effective design, integration and coordination of these three interrelated elements. A fourth element, d) performance measurement, is necessary to ensure that lean is working.