This is the must-read of the decade for anyone whose livelihood depends on new products. Those familiar with industry today know western companies are scrambling to emulate the Toyota Production System. But most don't realize that Toyota's new product development system is every bit as important to Toyota's ongoing success. If they've heard that Toyota's development engineers are four times more productive than their western counterparts, they probably chalk it up to Toyota Production System techniques. But they're wrong in doing so. While both systems deliver extremely high productivity, and both free people to do their best, there really aren't many similarities in how the systems work. Such techniques as concurrent engineering and parallel development are used to increase options and creative possibilities while at the same time lowering the risk of failure. No company that depends on an ongoing flow of new and improved products can afford to ignore the revelations this book contains or the potential advantages in terms of productivity and creativity that can accrue from the Toyota method.

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In Michael Kennedy's very readable book, one is introduced to Toyota's design concepts, unconventional to the majority of us in corporate North America. Imagine your product development process stipulating:
* explore not one, but multiple design solutions at the same time;
* delay the design's narrowing process to as late as possible in the process;
* demand the building and testing of multiple design models and prototypes for performance conformity;
* have the development, retention and reuse of engineering knowledge and skills a top priority for the company;
* eliminate the use of complex integrated task based program and plans by delegating each program designer to prepare his/her own time-lines to meet fixed review dates and performance levels; and
* have functional engineering managers focus on teaching and mentoring engineering talent, not administration.

In addition to product development, Kennedy's book gives the reader an overview of change management issues from strategy, to personal and political conflict, to presentation and implementation tactics. The book stimulates thought; it proposes possibilities; it gives a glimpse into the future of an enlightened company's product development process. It is beyond a wake-up-call; it is mental nourishment to everyone whose enterprise relies on engineered products.

18 of 19 found the following review helpful:

An easy read that will cause long term mental gymnasticsDec 24, 2004
By Stuart Charlton
What a wonderful read! I actually felt excited while reading it; it kept me up until 2:30am to finish in a single sitting. The format alternates between a chapter of fictional story, and a chapter of the author's commentary on the story and how it applies to the broader picture.

This is one of the few emerging practical books that discusses solutions to the productivity of knowledge workers. Drucker would be proud, I think. Businesses that manage engineers, artists, or product designers tend to be based on the original theory of management: Frederick Taylor's. This approach is largely based on manual labour -- making and moving things. Knowledge work isn't like that. You can't make knowledge workers productive by directing them, because by definition they will have more specialized knowledge about their contribution than you, as a manager, ever will!

Lean thinking really is about recognizing this "third wave" of management: first, there was task analysis. Then, we focused on business process engineering. Now, we look specifically at knowledge and value creation.

Lean thinking at its core is only 4 principles: add nothing but value (eliminate waste), center on the people who add value, flow value from demand (defer decisions), and optimize across the organization.

This book explains these principles as applied to product development -- which is quite different than lean production.
It really should have the same business impact that Goldratt's THE GOAL had back in the 1980's, if more would take notice.

15 of 16 found the following review helpful:

Thumbs up!Apr 02, 2006
By Roy J. O'Kelly
Thumbs up, but I'd recommend you attend his workshops over the book if the opportunity presents itself.

The book is written as a fictional account of a company's journey from process hell to an environment where engineers can devote themselves more completely to the craft they love. It is complete with protagonists and antagonists. The many men and women who have devoted large portions of their careers to wrestling with new product development process issues and trying to improve the quality and efficiency of product development processes may justifiably take offense at being cast as the antagonist, but it wouldn't be much of a story without the villains.

The book raises some very good issues and points out some very good practices that have contributed to Toyota's success. Toyota's design philosophy is optimized for lowest possible risk to model year goals. American management teams would do well to think about optimizing for low risk instead of highest efficiency and lowest development cost. For many companies the cost of developing a new product is a fairly modest portion of their overall cost structure and the price they pay for missing new product introduction dates is far greater than the gains from tailoring their internal processes for the lowest cost development.

The implementation of highly redundant development paths (called sets in the book) will be far less revolutionary than the book would have you believe. It really comes down to a willingness and ability to make the necessary investments. Readers who have studied Japanese companies will find much that is familiar. Publicly held Japanese companies are far less driven by quarterly results than are their American counter parts. Japanese companies typically have few (if any) small stockholders looking for short term gains. The largest stock holders in a Japanese company are often other Japanese companies. They tend to set long term strategic goals e.g. to dominate the world car industry in 5 years. While these businesses must make money to sustain themselves they are content with smaller earnings than their American counterparts making it possible to re-invest larger portions of their revenues back into the company. Some of that reinvestment shows up as investment in engineering work that reduces risk to new product introduction dates. But make no mistake about it, there are no miracle cures. During the initial stages of introducing a risk adverse strategy you are getting less (new features) with more (investment), but on time, likely with better quality, and you can build economically on that investment for a future stream of new products.

Efficiency can be a huge problem, but not always. In many organizations engineering efficiency is disappointingly low. The book tries to make the case that Toyota's engineers are 4X more productive than the engineers of the fictitious company in the book (approx. 80% productive compared to ITRs 20%). The measure of productivity is not explained, but it is implied that it is simply the number of hours/week that engineers spend engineering instead of (presumably) unnecessary process compliance. It is unlikely that Toyota's engineers are on average really 4X more productive than the best of American engineering teams. A comparison between Toyota's engineering and one of America's best is probably a better comparison than a fictitious engineering team. The book does not sight any objective evidence for the 4X claim. Although few companies share their productivity numbers, 65% is a widely accepted number for staff utilization. If Toyota's staff utilization really is 80% then that would put them about 1.23X more productive. In actual fact productivity is far more complex to measure and since it is so complex many observers chose a metric and then measure changes rather than focus on an absolute #. Lack of evidence aside, the book does highlight some interesting opportunities for improvement in the area of knowledge retention and reuse.

I have no doubt that there are companies whose developers are 20% productive. Lack of stability in the organization is certainly a contributor. The ineptitude and unending churn of engineering management teams is a frequent cause. Many companies have suffered at the hands of corporate management teams looking for quick fixes to the perception that their projects take too long, cost too much, and fail too often. They are often executives who have no engineering experience and no way to objectively assess the performance of their teams. They are driven by fear and uncertainty. They have often set goals that are hopelessly impossible to begin with. The result from the engineer's perspective is an unending stream of organizational change meetings to roll out the new engineering management team, introduce their dramatic new ideas, and get the teams trained. This is immediately followed by or coupled with a call to heroic self-sacrifice in an effort to meet the hopeless goal with the new structure. Sound familiar? If you we're drawn to this book it probably does.

The first thing that any student of Japanese industry learns is its strong reliance on life-time employment. While there has been some decline in longevity in recent years it remains the expectation for most Japanese employees entering the workforce. The long-term expectations and thorough understanding of the company and its markets which the most senior managers obtain during their long careers fosters more emphasis on incremental improvement rather than radical re-birth. Either strategy can work, but the highest probability of long-term success is with the incremental improvement paradigm.

Mr. Kennedy is a joy to talk to with a refreshing directness and wealth of experience. The book has a "sensational" tone, but you'd expect that in a work that was intended to get your attention and interest. The advice he offers in person is well reasoned and sound. Well worth the price of admission.


12 of 13 found the following review helpful:

The Right Stuff for Productive Product DevelopmentApr 14, 2005
By J. Groen "Jerry Groen"
This book lays out the "right stuff" for productive product development: the right culture, the right tools, the right process, etc. With all the current focus on centralization, controls, and program management offices what a refreshing look at what is really necessary to be successful in product development. Having worked 15 years in this field making this change happen and improving productivity (no really improve it), I can tell you that Michael Kennedy is on target. And, no, it isn't complex centralized task management processes and detailed centralized resource planning systems that require small armies of program management office bureaucrats put in place to control people. It is the people themselves. It is their knowledge and the use of the right process and tools that enables that knowledge that really counts. Personally, with all the junk out there today on controls systems, centralized project management, resource management and other approaches, and after being at another conference preaching this junk in the Pharmaceuctical industry (and where is their productivity at?) And recognizing that this junk really doesn't work, it is great to read a book that shows what does work. If you want your organization to really be successful in product development (no really successful in product development), don't read and listen to the junk coming out of PMI and the related consultants that purport to have the solution, which has no proof that it works in product development (only in the construction industry), read this instead. And, then work hard to make it happen in your company, with patience and perseverance - the right stuff!

7 of 7 found the following review helpful:

Almost PerfectSep 01, 2006
By Scott
Everything written is a bullseye with the exception of glaring ignorance regarding Six Sigma - what it is and isn't. What is written relative to Lean here should be taken verbatim as applying to Six Sigma also - there is no difference. Similarly, the written characterizations of Six Sigma should be ignored. To quote Senji Nihwa, Taiichi Ohno's lieutenant at Toyota for decades, in a good-natured ribbing, "You Americans, always trying to categorize things. Call it Lean, call it Six Sigma, it makes no difference to us...it's all the same." And so it is.

The book is extremely well written and accurate with the exception noted above. If readers can simply meld the descriptions as also being characteristic of a Six Sigma organization, and discard the mischaracterizations of Six Sigma as written, they are in for a very positive learning experience.

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