There may be no more iconic American brand than Harley-Davidson. But like many storied companies, Harley has had to evolve to stay on top and at times its very existence has been threatened. Practically extinct in the mid-1980's, the company began a miraculous turnaround centered on a product development and manufacturing revolution. With dramatic improvements in efficiency and bottom-line results, Harley returned to dominance. At the core of this incredible story was author Dantar Oosterwal, who brings the transformation of Harley-Davidson to life in "The Lean Machine". Filled with crucial lessons for any product development environment, it's also a great American success story.
Author(s): Dantar P. Oosterwal
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 273
Contents......Page 8
Acknowledgments......Page 12
Introduction......Page 14
1 Working Hard......Page 20
Springtime in Paris......Page 21
The Concurrent Product Development Process......Page 23
A Reality Check......Page 26
Unexpected Competition......Page 27
Problems Late in the Development Process......Page 29
2 The Harley-Davidson Environment......Page 44
Harley-Davidson Was Different......Page 46
We Fulfill Dreams......Page 49
Lessons from the Dark Days......Page 52
The Circle Organization......Page 55
Consensus-Driven Organization......Page 57
The Harley-Davidson Business Process......Page 58
Organizational Learning......Page 60
3 Harley-Davidson’s Product Development Leadership Learning Team......Page 62
The PDL[sup(2)]T Journey......Page 65
Learning Organizations......Page 66
4 The PDL[sup(2)]T......Page 80
Systems Thinking......Page 83
Learning to See the Product Development System......Page 86
Learningful Conversations......Page 89
Creating Shared Vision......Page 94
5 Firefighting and the Tipping Point......Page 99
The MIT Connection......Page 100
Firefighting......Page 101
The Tipping Point......Page 102
Past the Tipping Point......Page 103
Lessons from Beyond the Brink......Page 110
6 Cadence and Flow, Bins and Swirl......Page 113
The Outstanding Corporate Innovator......Page 116
Product Development Flow......Page 118
Product Development Cadence......Page 119
The Application of Cadence and Flow......Page 123
Bins......Page 126
Heuristic Rules of Thumb......Page 130
The Innovation Swirl......Page 132
7 Supply and Demand......Page 135
The System Dynamics Model of the Motorcycle Business......Page 141
Generating Product Demand......Page 145
Developing New Products......Page 147
8 A Left Turn: Implementing Lean Principles in Product Development......Page 150
Don’t Bring Lean Manufacturing Upstream......Page 152
The Roots of Knowledge-Based Product Development......Page 155
The Systems Approach to Flight......Page 157
Work Smarter, Not Harder......Page 162
9 The Product Development Limit Curve......Page 164
Haste Makes Waste......Page 166
Bad Systems Beat Good People......Page 169
Design Rework Loops......Page 171
Product Development Is Predictable......Page 172
10 Integration Points and False Positive Feasibility......Page 177
False Positive Feasibility......Page 181
Design Cycles and Integration Points......Page 183
11 Learning Cycles......Page 186
The Learning Cycle......Page 189
Set-Based Product Development......Page 193
12 Set-Based Design......Page 198
A New Framework for Product Development......Page 202
The Second Piece of the Limit Curve Puzzle......Page 203
13 Leadership Learning and Pull Events......Page 212
The Leadership Learning Change Model......Page 213
Early Pull Events......Page 218
Creating Leverage Through Pull Events......Page 222
14 Quickening Product Development......Page 225
Railroad Planning versus Combat Planning......Page 226
Establishing and Using Help Chains......Page 229
Using Visual Management......Page 231
Collaboration Using the Oobeya Process......Page 236
The Oobeya Process......Page 240
The Wall......Page 245
Quickening the Pace of Innovation......Page 249
16 Knowledge-Based Product Development......Page 253
Indications of Success......Page 256
Creating Change......Page 260
Notes......Page 264
C......Page 268
G......Page 269
M......Page 270
P......Page 271
S......Page 272
W......Page 273
