Lean Design

Abstract

Lean design is a term increasingly being used by both academics and practitioners to refer to lean 9 principles applied in the context of design. However, as this context is not uniform, the meaning of 10 lean design is not either. Lean design can be used as a synonym of lean development (which refers to 11 leaning the processes required to be undertaken for translating a market need into a manufacturable 12 device, as it is used in Ward and Sobek (2014), Ōno (1988), and Bauch (2004)), as a verb (referring to 13 having the process of designing being performed in a lean fashion, as it is used by Baines et al. (2006)), 14 and as a noun (referring to an object that fulfills a set of desired functions by being lean, as it is used in 15 Johansson and Sundin (2014), Dombrowski et al. (2014), and Gautam and Singh (2008)). All three 16 definitions are intrinsically founded upon the principles of the lean philosophy: eliminating non-value- 17 adding activities (for a process) or sub-functions (i.e., subpart or components for a product) relatively to 18 the needs of the end customer. From the perspective of the consumer of the product or service, the value 19 refers to the expected functionalities of the product or process, according to the amount the customer is 20 willing to pay for. Lean approach preserves value with less work or resources involvement.