Difference between revisions of "Lean Engineering"

Revision as of 21:35, 1 March 2012

Lean engineering is the application of Lean Thinking (Womack, 2003) to engineering, project management, and related disciplines. It increases value by reducing waste.

Lean Systems Engineering

Systems Engineering (SE) is an established, sound practice, but not always delivered effectively. Most programs are burdened with some form of waste: poor coordination, unstable requirements, quality problems, delays, rework, and management frustration. Recent U.S. GAO, NASA and MIT studies of government programs document major budget and schedule overruns, and a significant amount of waste in government programs, reaching 70 percent of charged time. This waste represents a productivity reserve in programs and major opportunities to improve program efficiency.

Lean Systems Engineering (LSE) is the application of Lean Thinking to system engineering and related aspects of enterprise and project management. SE is focused on the discipline that enables flawless development of complex technical systems. Lean Thinking is a holistic paradigm that focuses on delivering maximum value to the customer and minimizing wasteful practices. Lean Thinking has been successfully applied in manufacturing, aircraft depots, administration, supply chain management, healthcare, and product development, including engineering. Lean SE is the area of synergy between Lean Thinking and SE, with the goal to deliver the best life-cycle value for technically complex systems with minimal waste. LSE does not mean less SE. It means more and better systems engineering with higher responsibility, authority, and accountability (RAA), leading to better, waste-free workflow with increased mission assurance. Under the LSE philosophy, mission assurance is non-negotiable, and any task which is legitimately required for success must be included, but it should be well-planned and executed with minimal waste.

Lean Principles

The Lean Institute (2009) specifies five lean principles. Following the example of Toyota, INCOSE (Lean Systems Engineering Working Group, 2009) has adopted a sixth as well.

Specify value from the standpoint of the end customer by product family.
Identify all the steps in the value stream for each product family, eliminating whenever possible those steps that do not create value.
Make the value-creating steps occur in tight sequence so the product will flow smoothly toward the customer.
As flow is introduced, let customers pull value from the next upstream activity.
As value is specified, value streams are identified, wasted steps are removed, and flow and pull are introduced, begin the process again and continue it until a state of perfection is reached in which perfect value is created with no waste
Respect people.

Lean Enablers for Systems

In 2009, the Lean SE Working Group released a new online product named Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LEfSE). It is a [collection of 194 practices and recommendations] formulated as “dos” and “don’ts” of SE based on Lean Thinking. The practices cover a large spectrum of SE and other relevant enterprise management practices, with a general focus to improve program value and stakeholder satisfaction, and reduce waste, delays, cost overruns, and frustrations. LEfSE are grouped under the six Lean Principles. The LEfSE are not intended to become a mandatory practice. Instead, they should be used as a checklist of good practices. LEfSE do not replace the traditional SE; they amend it with Lean Thinking.

LEfSE were developed by 14 experienced INCOSE practitioners, some recognized leaders in Lean and SE from industry, academia and governments (from the U.S., United Kingdom, and Israel), with cooperation from the 160-member international LSE WG. They adopted best practices from the best companies, added collective tacit knowledge, wisdom, and experience of the LSE WG members, and inserted best practices from Lean research and literature. The product has been evaluated by surveys and comparisons with the recent programmatic recommendations by GAO and NASA. Oppenheim (2011) includes a comprehensive explanation of the enablers, as well as the history of LSE, the development process of LEfSE, industrial examples, and other material. Oppeneheim, Murman, and Secor (2011) provide a scholarly article about LEfSE. A short summary was published in 2009 by Oppenheim. [The Lean SE WG public web page ] contains descriptions of LSE and LEfSE that vary from entry level (a brochure, short articles, power point presentation, and a video lecture), to full-length desktop Guidebook, and scholarly paper.

References

Works Cited

Lean Enterprise Institute. 2009. "Principles of Lean." Accessed 1 March 2012 at http://www.lean.org/WhatsLean/Principles.cfm.

Lean Systems Engineering Working Group. 2009. "Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering." Accessed 1 March 2012 at http://cse.lmu.edu/Assets/Colleges+Schools/CSE/Lean+Enablers+for+SE+Version+1.01.pdf

Oppenheim, Bohdan W. 2009. "Process Replication: Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering." CrossTalk, The Journal of Defense Software Engineering. July/August 2009.

Oppenheim, Bohdan W. 2011. Lean for Systems Engineering, with Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley.

Oppenheim, Bohdan W., Murman Earl M., and Secor Deborah. 2011. "Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering." Journal of Systems Engineering, No. 1, Vol. 14.

Womack, James P. 2009. Lean Thinking. Columbus, OH, USA: Free Press.

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 *Respect people.
 ==Lean Enablers for Systems ==
-In 2009, the Lean SE Working Group  released a new online product named Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LEfSE). It is a collection of 194 practices and recommendations formulated as “dos” and “don’ts” of SE based on Lean Thinking.  The practices cover a large spectrum of SE and other relevant enterprise management practices, with a general focus to improve program value and stakeholder satisfaction, and reduce waste, delays, cost overruns, and frustrations.  LEfSE are grouped under the six Lean Principles. The LEfSE are not intended to become a mandatory practice. Instead, they should be used as a checklist of good practices. LEfSE do not replace the traditional SE; they amend it with Lean Thinking.
+In 2009, the Lean SE Working Group  released a new online product named Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LEfSE). It is a [[http://cse.lmu.edu/Assets/Colleges+Schools/CSE/Mechanical+Engr/LEfSE+Quick+Reference+Guide+(8+pages$!2c+pdf).pdf collection of 194 practices and recommendations]] formulated as “dos” and “don’ts” of SE based on Lean Thinking.  The practices cover a large spectrum of SE and other relevant enterprise management practices, with a general focus to improve program value and stakeholder satisfaction, and reduce waste, delays, cost overruns, and frustrations.  LEfSE are grouped under the six Lean Principles. The LEfSE are not intended to become a mandatory practice. Instead, they should be used as a checklist of good practices. LEfSE do not replace the traditional SE; they amend it with Lean Thinking.
 	LEfSE were developed by 14 experienced INCOSE practitioners, some recognized leaders in Lean and SE from industry, academia and governments (from the U.S., United Kingdom, and Israel), with cooperation from the 160-member international LSE WG.  They adopted best practices from the best companies, added collective tacit knowledge, wisdom, and experience of the LSE WG members, and inserted best practices from Lean research and literature.  The product has been evaluated by surveys and comparisons with the recent programmatic recommendations by GAO and NASA.