Relationships between lean product development enablers and problems

The lean product development (LPD) approach uses lean principles and enablers (tools, techniques and practices) to reduce waste and continuously improve the product development processes (PDP). Other than reducing product development lead time, LPD also aims at improving quality by reducing problems that might occur during the process. Several LPD enablers are proposed in the existing literature; however, there is limited knowledge on how these enablers may effectively counteract the occurrence of problems in the PDP. We empirically tested the association between 4 groups of LPD enablers and 11 groups of LPD problems in a sample of 64 companies that are undergoing lean implementation in the shop floor and administrative areas. There are two major contributions here. First, we propose an empirically validated instrument for assessing the adoption of LPD enablers and the incidence of LPD problems in companies filling an existing gap in the literature. Second, we provide understanding on how LPD enablers can mitigate the incidence of LPD problems, allowing companies undergoing lean implementation to better manage their PDP. Moreover, some results demonstrate that the association between enablers and problems may not be as suggested in the existing literature.