Can Innovation Be Lean? Browning, Tyson R.; Sanders, Nada R.
California management review,
07/2012, Letnik:
54, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Every executive has heard about the importance of Lean as a means of eliminating waste and “fat.” However, when operations are novel and complex—as in product development, research, information ...technology, and many other kinds of projects—cutting out the “fat” turns out to be much more challenging. To understand Lean in an environment characterized by extreme novelty and complexity, we drew on our experiences with a number of processes, and in particular Lockheed Martin's Lean implementation for the F-22 fighter aircraft. Our findings lead to a path that executives and managers can follow to become Lean without compromising innovation.
To gain competitive leverage, firms that design and develop complex products seek to increase the efficiency and predictability of their development processes. Process improvement is facilitated by ...the development and use of models that account for and illuminate important characteristics of the process. Iteration is a fundamental but often unaddressed feature of product development (PD) processes. Its impact is mediated by the architecture of a process, i.e., its constituent activities and their interactions. This paper integrates several important characteristics of PD processes into a single model, highlighting the effects of varying process architecture. The PD process is modeled as a network of activities that exchange deliverables. Each activity has an uncertain duration and cost, an improvement curve, and risks of rework based on changes in its inputs. A work policy governs the timing of activity execution and deliverable exchange (and thus the amount of activity concurrency). The model is analyzed via simulation, which outputs sample cost and schedule outcome distributions. Varying the process architecture input varies the output distributions. Each distribution is used with a target and an impact function to determine a risk factor. Alternative process architectures are compared, revealing opportunities to trade cost and schedule risk. Example results and applications are shown for an industrial process, the preliminary design of an uninhabited combat aerial vehicle. The model yields and reinforces several managerial insights, including: how rework cascades through a PD process, trading off cost and schedule risk, interface criticality, and occasions for iterative overlapping.
Unknown unknowns - often called unk-unks - are lurking in every project, just waiting to emerge, surprise and derail plans. Project knowledge comes from learning about the project its overall ...context, its goals and objectives, the process for achieving them, the people, tools and other resources to be deployed, and how all of these affect one another. Many so-called unk-unks aren't really unkunks at all. Rather, they are things no one has bothered to find out. Indeed, there are two kinds of unknowns: unknown unknowns (things we don't know we don't know) and known unknowns (things we know we don't know). (See Converting Knowable Unk-Unks to Known Unknowns.) Every project has some of both. The techniques of conventional risk management apply only to the known unknowns. Yet some unk-unks are knowable and can be converted to known unknowns through a process of directed recognition. This article provides an overview of the targets, methods and tools the where, why and how of directed recognition. Several characteristics of a project's subsystems and context make surprises more likely.
Time–cost trade-offs arise when organizations seek the fastest product development (PD) process subject to a predefined budget, or the lowest-cost PD process within a given project deadline. Most of ...the engineering and project management literature has addressed this trade-off problem solely in terms of crashing—options to trade cost for time at the individual activity level—and using acyclical networks. Previously (Meier et al. in IEEE Trans Eng Manag 62(2):237–255,
2015
), we presented a rich model of the iterative (cyclical) PD process that accounts for crashing, overlapping, and stochastic activity durations and iterations. In this paper, we (1) propose an optimization strategy for the model based on a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, called
ε
-MOEA, which identifies the Pareto set of best time–cost trade-off solutions, and (2) demonstrate the approach using an automotive case study. We find that, in addition to crashing, activity overlapping, process architecture, and work policy provide further managerial levers for addressing the time–cost trade-off problem. In particular, managerial work policies guide process cost and duration into particular subsets of the Pareto-optimal solutions. No work policy appeared to be superior to the others in both the cost and duration dimensions; instead, a time–cost trade-off arises due to the choice of work policy. We conclude that it is essential for managers to consider all of the key factors in combination when planning and executing PD projects.
New product development projects are highly risky technical undertakings. Organizations frequently seek to manage the risk involved using standard risk management procedures, knowing that a company ...that better manages risks is less vulnerable. Nevertheless, NPD projects continue to fail to meet expectations for delivery time, budget, and outcomes. In this paper, we explore reasons why, despite employing self-evidently correct risk management procedures, adversities occurred in 19 major information systems projects. Project managers focused on the familiar, the measurable, the favorable, the noncommittal, and the controllable while excluding other risks that significantly affected their project performance. We have characterized this tendency as a series of five lures that leave projects vulnerable to risks.
Project management theory provides insufficient insight on the effects of crashing and overlapping in product development (PD) projects. The scholarly literature largely assumes that networks of ...project activities are acyclical. PD projects are iterative, however, and the time-cost implications of managerial actions, such as activity crashing and overlapping, differ in this context. We build a rich model that accounts for activity overlapping, crashing, and iteration in the project's activity network. Using a bank of thousands of artificial but realistic test problems, we test the performance of several alternative work policies-managerial rules about when to start work and rework, and when to allow crashing and overlapping-and compare their time-cost implications. We find that the time-cost benefits of crashing and overlapping increase with increasing iteration. However, whereas crashing works well in combination with an aggressive work policy that does not seek to minimize iteration and rework, overlapping ironically works better with a work policy that defers rework. No single work policy dominates in all situations, although an aggressive policy that precipitates rework may often be worth its added cost. We distill our findings into a set of propositions that pave the way for further theory development in this area. Our results also illuminate useful heuristics for managers of PD projects.
Abstract
Economic sanctions and consumer boycotts are common tools to punish organizations for undesirable behavior and attempt to coerce them to change their actions. However, these tools ...occasionally spill over beyond the intended recipients and affect guiltless supply chain members, jeopardizing the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion in supply chains. This study identifies four channels through which sanctions and boycotts propagate through supply chains. In particular, supply chain members can be affected by direct relationships with targeted organizations, disruptions in accessing foreign markets, inability to access technology, and logistics failures. Potential solutions include mapping supply chains, proactive cooperation, network analysis, and shortening supply chains. While the work provides a general framework for research and practitioners, it also identifies areas for further studies, such as the role of new technologies and the effect of sanctions and boycotts on supply chain sustainability.
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