This book describes what could be termed n 'engineering development secret' -- the creation and application of visible knowledge to propel effective product development. Visible knowledge is a tool nearly lost in the West, but it has been used to great effect by Toyota in its 50 year march from non-competitiveness to its current status as the preeminent global automobile company.
Visible Knowledge for Flawless Design presents the reader with a systematic approach to create, capture, and display knowledge in a way that allows development teams to optimize the design of their products and production processes. Visible knowledge not only applies to knowledge management, but also provides a means of collaboration to facilitate better decision-making in the development process. The book provides a brief history and background of the technique, then takes the reader through example problems in a step-by-step workbook style that facilitates practice and application. It concludes with suggestions on implementation in the reader's work environment.
Dr. Allen Ward is the patriarch of Lean Product Development. His efforts led to the rediscovery of Visible Knowledge and the recognition of its importance in the development of new manufactured products. Allen was driven by a desire to test his hypothesis that the optimal design would be achieved through a 'design compiler' that would simultaneously evaluate all design variables to maximize the overall benefit for the customer. Or more simply put, if all of the data and trade-offs to a design were defined in advance, then simultaneously evaluating the design factors would lead developers to the optimal design solution.
Dr. Ward set out to study design processes in industry to understand how companies evaluated design parameters to optimize their designs. He discovered only one company in which developers methodically created knowledge, evaluated parameters in advance of making design decisions according to his hypothesis for optimal design, and reused that knowledge in subsequent design cycles. This company was Toyota and the development system employed there was multiple times more effective and efficient than anything else he found in his research. Dr. Ward referred to the technique he uncovered as 'visible knowledge.' By carefully understanding the relationships between design parameters and product performance, then creating visible representations of those relationships, new knowledge is generated in such a way that engineering comparisons can be made quickly and efficiently resulting in faster decision-making with less design iteration. The general form of the solutions can then be stored and applied on all future problems that fit the form, greatly extending the development capability of the development team. Dr. Ward wrote a manuscript to describe visible knowledge, but tragically passed away before it was ever published. Visible Knowledge for Flawless Design is the completion of that manuscript. It has been corrected and compiled for publication in an effort to keep it as close as possible to the original manuscript, but updated and augmented in key areas to keep the text current and provide additional insight and examples.
Allen Ward
Many consider Allen Ward the patriarch of Lean product development. According to James Womack (Founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute) although many have studied Toyota as astute observers, very few truly understood what they were observing and extracted the principles that made Toyota methods effective. Because it is generally not possible (or even reasonable) to duplicate Toyota's Product Development System in other companies directly, it is critical to understand why it works in order to leverage the principles in other companies. Based on a decade of direct research at Toyota, Allen provided tremendous insight into what is important for effective development processes and how they work. Although Allen died in 2004, he is still seen as the founder of the lean product development movement and held in highest esteem by those who want to learn lean development methods. .
Durward Sobek
Durward K. Sobek II is a Professor and Program Coordinator of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering at Montana State University. He holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an A.B. degree in Engineering Sciences from Dartmouth College. Dr. Sobek has been researching lean product development and lean healthcare for nearly two decades, focusing on how organizations can increase their performance capacity through the application of lean principles. He is co-founder of the not-for-profit Lean Product and Process Development Exchange, Inc. whose mission is to share and expand the body of knowledge around lean product and process development. He is a frequent presenter, and has written published articles in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management among other publications. He is co-author of Lean Product and Process Development, 2nd edition with Allen C. Ward; and is co-author of the Shingo Prize winning book Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota's PDCA Management System.
Dantar Oosterwal
Dantar Oosterwal is a Lean product development practitioner, advisor, speaker, and author. He co-founded the Milwaukee Consulting Group focused on helping organizations implement continuous improvement principles. Before founding the Milwaukee Consulting Group, he was Global Vice President of innovation at Sara Lee where he drove over 30% improvement in product development throughput and increased revenue from new innovation from 5% to 20% through the implementation of Lean product development methods.
Prior to Sara Lee, Dantar was Director of Product Development at Harley-Davidson where he first learned and drove implementation of lean product development methods. This effort led to a 4-fold improvement in product development throughput and over 50% acceleration in time to market with a customer satisfaction level of 98% repurchase intent
Dantar authored the popular book, The Lean Machine, which describes the lean product development transformation at Harley-Davidson. As an avid proponent of lean product development, he continues to promote lean product development and share his experiences to help companies learn and institute Lean development practices. He writes articles and is a popular speaker at events as diverse as delivering the keynote address at Lean Lab 2012 in Stockholm Sweden, to participating in Innovation Roundtable at the University of Chicago. Dantar holds degrees from The University of Michigan, and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
