Developing a Lean Value Model for Product Development

This paper presents a value quantification model for multi-stage product development using lean principles. The proposed value model considers four main stages of product development (PD) including conceptual development, systems design, detailed design and prototyping. The model determines an optimal solution for each of the design variables to maximize the value at each of the PD stages. The value at each of the PD stages is formulated as a function of the six factors: (a) importance of customer requirements (b) cost of customer’s ownership, (c) parts/service availability, (d) weighted average cost of capital, (e) information evolution and (f) risk reduction. Factors (a)-(d) have been adequately addressed in the literature. This study focuses on information evolution and risk reduction. These two factors are defined by a set of value attributes including performance, risk, schedule, cost, form, fit, function and timeliness. An example of Detonator Disposal (DD) robot family is used to explain the working of the proposed model.