Lean Driven Innovation

In 2005, Goodyear’s research and development (R&D) engine was not performing up to its full potential. The R&D organization developed high-quality tires, but the projects were not always successful. Goodyear embarked on a major initiative to transform its innovation creation processes by learning, understanding, and applying lean product development principles. Within five years, Goodyear saw its product development cycle times slashed by 70 percent, on-time delivery performance rise close to 100 percent, and throughput improve three-fold – all achieved with no increase in the R&D budget. Lean-Driven Innovation: Powering Product Development at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company describes in great detail how the Goodyear team was able to achieve such significant improvements. Revealing the ups and downs of this successful transformation, the book shares experiences of how this seismic change was managed, how people were engaged, and how Goodyear dramatically reinvigorated its product development and innovation processes—and, in the process, delivered substantial more value to customers and to the company. The book also explains how lean product development helped Goodyear dramatically improve revenue by having every new product available when the market needed it. Presenting wide-ranging perspectives from all levels of leadership, this book is ideal for anyone in R&D daring to take on a lean initiative in R&D or who is struggling with a lean transformation that is not delivering to its full potential. Since the book focuses on universal lean principles, it is as insightful to other manufacturing and nonmanufacturing disciplines in any industry as well. The book presents invaluable insights gained by the author during his 36 years within Goodyear, of which 10 have been directly involved in trying to develop, implement, and sustain lean to achieve the company’s business objectives. It distills ideas, practices, failures, and successes into key principles that lean product development practitioners can easily implement. After reading this book, you will gain a practical path for applying lean to the innovation processes of your organization, including where to begin and what to do, regardless of the industry and the status of your transformation. Watch Norbert Majerus discuss Lean-Driven Innovation at: https://youtu.be/yIlJEMJIcyA

Do these comments sound familiar?We would love to be more innovative, but we don‘t have the resourcesInnovation works in some companies; we just aren‘t that creativeWe get some good ideas, but nothing ever happens with themUnfortunately, they reflect the general perception and environment for innovation in many firms today. In Lean Innovation: Unde

Despite enormous investments of time and money, are we making a dent on the social and environmental challenges of our time? What if we could exponentially increase our impact? Around the world, a new generation is looking beyond greater profits, for meaningful purpose. But, unlike business, few social interventions have achieved significant impact at scale. Inspired by the modern innovation practices, popularized by bestseller The Lean Startup, that have fueled technology breakthroughs touching every aspect of our lives, Lean Impact turns our attention to a new goal - radically greater social good. Social change is far more complicated than building a new app. It requires more listening, more care, and more stakeholders. To make a lasting difference, solutions must be embraced by beneficiaries, address root causes, and include an engine that can accelerate growth to reach the scale of the need. Lean Impact offers bold ideas to reach audacious goals through customer insight, rapid experimentation and iteration, and a relentless pursuit of impact. Ann Mei Chang brings a unique perspective from across sectors, from her years as a tech executive in Silicon Valley to her most recent experience as the Chief Innovation Officer at USAID. She vividly illustrates the book with real stories from interviews with over 200 organizations across the US and around the world. Whether you are a nonprofit, social enterprise, triple bottom line company, foundation, government agency, philanthropist, impact investor, or simply donate your time and money, Lean Impact is an essential guide to maximizing social impact and scale.

Efficient operations and powerful innovations are not limited to seasons of growth and high demand. Going Lean introduces the powerful yet unexpected mind-set that’s reshaping the rules for business competitiveness: Lean Dynamics TM. This approach, based on the now-famous Toyota Production System--empowers companies to thrive in virtually any environment--even when sudden shifts occur or they experience unpredictable conditions. Through a detailed exploration of this approach, readers will learn how to: become broadly effective in creating and sustaining value; set a critical foundation for achieving sustained excellence; identify sources of lag and create robust value streams that thrive in today’s dynamic conditions; describe the underlying techniques to maintain steady and predictable flow; create a system based on “pull,” or external demand that consistently introduces new innovation; strive for perfection; and deliver industry-leading returns. Led by a new breed of companies--Toyota, Walmart, and Southwest Airlines--this innovative mind-set changes the game for businesses everywhere. Going Lean teaches readers how their companies--big or small--can leverage this revolutionary thinking to measure and achieve real results.

Currently, businesses are forced to be more innovative than ever before. Organizations must be sensitive to global trends -- such as digitization, globalization, and automation -- and at the same time build resilience and flexibility to combat unexpected changes in customer demand. The coronavirus pandemic is just the most recent and pronounced example of this new-normal business necessity. Amidst the disruption, many businesses are caught not knowing how to proceed. How ought one pursue or achieve innovation for the company? Are there different innovation strategies? Why might a business leader choose one over the other? The Lean Innovation Cycle addresses these concerns by introducing a new multidisciplinary framework for both thinking about and pursing innovation. By taking key concepts from the quality management practices of Lean and Six Sigma, the framework augments these tools and disciplines by incorporating other problem-solving and design techniques, including Human-Centered Design. The result is a view of innovation that many business leaders will find fits nicely into their existing paradigm of strategy and operational discipline. After the introduction of the framework, the book turns to understanding the differences, advantages, and tradeoffs in pursuing Lean Innovation in lieu of traditional, technologically driven innovation approaches. To this end, the book considers issues of sustainability, organizational strategy, and competitive advantage. The result is a thought-provoking dialogue that informs the reader about the key considerations of how best to pursue innovation within their business and the business environment, as well as the circumstances that might make one innovation strategy more congruent to an organization’s culture, goals, and objectives than the other.

"Leaders in Lean organizations must encourage and foster new ideas. Yet as humans we are naturally wired to feel discomfort around newness. Fortunately, there is a large body of knowledge on the leadership behaviors needed to create an environment for innovation that has been developed alongside the development of Lean thinking. Because this knowledge has been developed in large part outside of the Lean community, Lean managers, leaders, and practitioners are often not familiar with it, and when they become familiar, they struggle to integrate with the Lean tools they have learned. This book presents critical creativity skills in the context of Lean continuous improvement and Lean product development approaches. Essentially, is your Lean implementation lacking a creative spark? Do your employees struggle to bring ideas forward? Do you need them to bring you more creative ideas and better improvements? Does your company need more innovative new products, and do you need your people to build and strengthen their ideas more effectively? Learn how you can leverage learnings from creativity studies and brain science to build more innovation into your Lean continuous improvement and Lean product development efforts"--

Davanti Nella Gara, an Italian bicycle company, makes the best racing bikes in the world. But after decades of market dominance, competitors have brought the industry leader back to the Peloton. The company’s second-generation owner longs for retirement, but a tired product lineup is pushing down profits and the firm’s market value will never support his ride into the sunset. The flawed but beloved owner seeks out the counsel of an old friend and successful businessman, who steers him toward a fast and remarkable transformation, one fueled by a relentless focus on innovation excellence. An engaging business novel, Winning Innovation dives into the art and science of innovation; the thrills of the European bike-racing circuit; the vibrant landscape and cuisine of Italy; and a cast of intriguing characters who work to put Davanti on the road to sustained prosperity. The company’s leader isn’t afraid to learn and apply new ideas to reenergize his company, and finds he cares more about his employees than he could ever imagine. A young innovator struggles to see a product idea to fruition as well as rise into management — and he falls in love along the way. A newly promoted R&D director brings teamwork and transparency to product development and aligns the entire company around innovation. With the help of a seasoned and persistent change agent, in just a year, Davanti deploys a well-defined and -sequenced transformation — a complete and seamless process that can be replicated and scaled by most companies. The leader engages associates in pursuit of the right vision and strategy, candidly supporting them all as they unleash their creative sparks, work through personality conflicts, and take on real-world challenges faced by companies every day. They learn and apply traditional R&D principles in new ways (e.g., cost of delay, sprints, fail fast, late start) and successfully leverage emerging innovation and change-management principles (e.g., idea-creation events, knowledge management, workplace humility, visual management, lean project management). And an aligned, three-phase innovation process — from idea creation to technology development and product design — provides the innovation infrastructure the company needs for revenue creation and success beyond racing bikes. From a top-heavy organization dominated by power struggles and finger-pointing emerges a new Davanti Nella Gara — a flattened, innovative company with: Clear vision and endorsed goals and strategy Speed, responsiveness, and agility Widespread, successful creativity Collaboration and teamwork Superior risk management Respect for people Unquestionable ethics Changed leadership and associate behaviors Project management excellence Rapid problem-solving and experimentation Not just the story of an R&D transformation, Winning Innovation illustrates a companywide transformation of a magnitude that only superior R&D can make possible. It may well be the first book to chronologically introduce the principles for a complete innovation excellence transformation along with the parallel people transformation that is necessary for real change to occur. The end result for Davanti Nella Gara is a dominant new culture based on respect and humility, highly efficient processes that will deliver a wealth of innovations, sales, and profits for many years to come, and an owner who leaves a bright future for the people and company he’s known and loved his entire life.

Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC) was one of the first health care organizations to implement Lean and its methodologies. Other organizations have followed VMMC‘s lead, but this world class organization still leads in the utilization of innovative Lean tools.Accelerating Health Care Transformation with Lean and Innovation: The Virginia Mason Exp