Title: Lean management methods in product development - a case study based on human respect with productivity focus

Authors: Daniel João Pimentel Soares; João Bastos; Diana Rebecca Gavazzo Rodrigues; João Paulo Geraldes Touro Pereira; António José Caetano Baptista

Addresses: INEGI – Instituto de Ciências e Inovação em Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia Industrial, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 400, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal ' Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Instituto Politécnico do Porto, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 431, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal ' INEGI – Instituto de Ciências e Inovação em Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia Industrial, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 400, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal ' INEGI – Instituto de Ciências e Inovação em Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia Industrial, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 400, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal ' INEGI – Instituto de Ciências e Inovação em Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia Industrial, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 400, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

Abstract: Organisations of all natures, private or public, profit or non-profit oriented, face increased pressure in an extensively globalised world. Lean philosophy has become popular in recent decades owing to its typically large impact on an organisation's productivity improvement, namely within the manufacturing area. Furthermore, the introduction of systematic, driven and continuous programs, is becoming more and more common in product and process development departments. The current research paper presents first the conceptual framework of a lean reference model for a product development environment; and secondly, the paper presents the deployment and assessment of the outcomes of the lean reference model through a concise case study implementation example. This example will allow not only a concise demonstration of the applicability of the theoretical concepts behind the proposed model, but also the developed tools and methods behind these concepts.

Keywords: lean management; respect for humanity; PDCA stopper mechanism; skills and intrinsic motivation matrix; product development; case study; productivity focus; lean reference model; employee-manager mutual respect; plan do check act.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLER.2015.076659

International Journal of Lean Enterprise Research, 2015 Vol.1 No.4, pp.393 - 411

Accepted: 08 Sep 2015
Published online: 19 May 2016 *

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