An Empirical Use of Lean Management Methods to Aid Design and Development Planning for ETO

Abstract

Engineer to Order (ETO) businesses have to face the task of handling high customer requirements complexity and, ultimately, coordinating all activities to respond to customer requests efficiently and effectively. Planning the activities of the design, manufacturing and assembly departments in these contexts is a dynamic activity, even considering the uncertainty of lead times and the difficulties in estimating the workload of resources. Literature has concentrated mainly on preparing methods for uniform make to stock environments, often ignoring the needs of ETO companies. Interestingly, while historically lean management techniques have been developed and applied to mass manufacturing, empirical evidence suggests that they can also be implemented effectively in ETO firms. This paper aims to present a framework to help design, manufacture and assembly preparation in the sense of an ETO. The approach blends project planning criteria with lean management instruments, i.e. Asaichi, and tools for visual communication and management. This has been successfully implemented in an organization demonstrating the ability to improve planning efficiency, consistency in the business and, eventually, execution results.