Plenary Lecture
Lean Product and Process Development: A Value Creation Paradigm that Goes Beyond Lean Manufacturing
Professor Ahmed Al-Ashaab
Manufacturing Department
Cranfield University
United Kingdom
E-mail: a.al-ashaab@cranfield.ac.uk
Abstract: The increased international competition in the current open global market is putting pressure on companies to improve the performance of their product development. This is to sustain and improve market share through the production of a high quality product in a cost effective manner in shorter time. This is because organisational survival and long-term growth depends on the introduction and development of new products. Manufacturing companies are in need of a new model that goes beyond lean manufacturing to ensure the transformation of the enterprise into lean environment. The author believes that significant change in enterprise performance can come from the adoption of lean thinking throughout the entire product life cycle. This is the Lean Product and Process Development (LeanPPD) process model. The whole objective of lean is the elimination of waste. This is good to achieve, but an isolated success within a manufacturing company is not sufficient. What is needed is a new paradigm that will take the lean manufacturing concepts from waste elimination into value creation. In order to make a significant change in enterprise performance and saving ultimate system costs, there is a need for the entire enterprise to undergo a lean transformation. LeanPPD is the application of lean thinking in product design, engineering and development. It focuses on value creation, provision of knowledge environment, continuous improvement and set-based concurrent engineering process that encourage innovation and collaboration. LeanPPD provides and process model and associate tools that consider entire product life cycle. It provides knowledge based user centric design and development environment to support value creation to the customers in term of innovation and customisation, quality as well as sustainable and affordable products.
Brief Biography of the Speaker: Dr. Al-Ashaab is Reader in Lean Product Development at the Manufacturing Department of Cranfield University. He is leading the LeanPPD Research Group at Cranfield University. He was the technical coordinator of the LeanPPD European project. Dr. Al-¬Ashaab has been an active researcher in the areas of collaborative product development, concurrent engineering, knowledge-based engineering, lean product development and performance measurement. His research projects have a strong focus on industrial applications. The research carrier started after he obtained his PhD from Loughborough University in 1994. He then worked at ITESM Campus Monterrey in Mexico from 1994 to 2000 where 50% of his time was spent working with Mexican Industry in applied research. At Cranfield University, He is the Course director of MSc program on Knowledge Management for Innovation. He has 22 years of teaching experience in Mexico, Colombia, France and UK. Dr Ahmed Al-Ashaab is the author/co-author of more than 60 research papers published in major international journals and internationally refereed conferences. He has supervised over 70 Masters and Doctoral theses. Dr. Al-Ashaab is a member of the ISPE Board and the organisation committee of the CE20xx series of conferences. He has been an active peer reviewer for EPSRC, and several international journals. He has been collaborating with many companies such as Rolls-Royce, Airbus, Visteon, JLR, VW, Sitech, Indesit, MOOG, Caltec, CEMEX, Paxton and GETRAG.