Lean for Systems Engineering with Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering E-Book

B. W. Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: Wiley Series in Systems Engineering and Management
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 455

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

"Bohdan W. Oppenheim has pulled together experience-based insights of experts across industry, government, and academia into a comprehensive sourcebook for lean systems engineering principles and practices. This book can educate those new to lean engineering, as well as provide new insights and enablers that best-in-class organizations will want to adopt." --Dr. Donna H. Rhodes, Principal Research Scientist, SEAri and LAI, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Lean for Systems Engineering is targeted at the practitioner who is trying to make systems engineering more effective in her or his organization or program, yet its scholarly underpinnings make the text very suitable for teachers. Educators and trainers who wish to weave lean thinking into their systems engineering curriculum will find this an invaluable text." --Earll M. Murman, Ford Professor of Engineering Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "At last, a book that distills years of research and scholarly inquiry into a concise and coherent form for both the student and practitioner. This book will become the favored guide and 'must read' for any engineer and manager trying to establish and maintain lean practices and principles in their systems engineering/product development processes. --J. Robert Wirthlin, PhD, Lt. Col., USAF, Program Director of the Graduate Research and Development Management Program, Air Force Institute of Technology Visiting Faculty, U.S. Air Force Center for Systems Engineering "A vital contribution to linking lean practices to systems engineering. I will definitely use it as a reference for my course and writings on a value approach to product and system development." --Dr. Stanley I. Weiss, Consulting Professor, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University "Taking the opportunity to develop and refine the Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering provided clear direction for Lean Engineering Accelerated Planning at Rockwell Collins. The Lean Enablers form a solid basis for Lean Product Development. Following this checklist and methodology promotes Lean value and waste elimination--and commonsense best practices." --Deborah A. Secor, Principal Project Manager and Lean Master, Rockwell Collins "Bo Oppenheim has been at the forefront of lean systems engineering for the better part of the last decade...An ardent advocate of lean systems engineering, the author has offered an honest appraisal of where lean systems engineering stands today. Practitioners interested in lean systems engineering will find the Lean Enablers especially useful."-- Azad M. Madni, PhD, Professor and Director, SAE Program, Viterbi School of Engineering; Professor, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Series Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication Page

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

List of Enablers and Subenablers in Chapter 7

List of Figures and Numbered Text Boxes

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introducing Lean Systems Engineering and Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering

1.2 Organization of the Book

Chapter 2: A Brief History of Recent Management Paradigms

2.1 From TQM to Six Sigma and Lean

2.2 Lean Six Sigma

Chapter 3: Lean Fundamentals

3.1 Value

3.2 Waste

3.3 Lean Principles

3.4 The Lean Symphony of the Principles

Chapter 4: Lean in Product Development

4.1 Review of Progress

4.2 The Method of Lean Product Development Flow (LPDF)

Chapter 5: From Traditional to Lean Systems Engineering

5.1 Successes and Failures of Traditional Systems Engineering

5.2 Waste in Traditional Systems Engineering

5.3 Beginnings of Lean Systems Engineering

5.4 Lean Systems Engineering Working Group of INCOSE

5.5 Value in Lean Systems Engineering

Chapter 6: Development of Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LESE)

6.1 Strategy

6.2 Development of LEfSE

6.3 Survey

6.4 Benchmarking with NASA and GAO Recommendations

6.5 Version 1.0 and Awards

Chapter 7: Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering

7.1 Organization

7.2 Tables with Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LEfSE)

Chapter 8: General Guidance for Implementation

8.1 General Guidance for Implementing LEfSE

8.2 Early Case Studies

Glossary of Abbreviations

References

Appendix 1: INCOSE Web Page with LEfSE

Appendix 2: Mapping of LEfSE onto INCOSE SE Processes

Author's Biography

Index

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Bohdan W. Oppenheim, 1948-

Lean for systems engineering with lean enablers for systems engineering / Bohdan W. Oppenheim.

p. cm. - (Wiley series in systems engineering and management ; 82)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-118-00889-8 (hardback)

1. Engineering economy. 2. Systems engineering. 3. Lean manufacturing. I. Title.

TA177.4.O66 2011

658.15–dc22

2010053404

To my sons Peter and Tomas, and to my beloved lands:

United States and Poland - I dedicate this book in the

hope that all four will always strive to optimize in the

next larger context without sub - optimization,

consistent with Lean Thinking.

Foreword

Poor program performance for large complex systems is an all too frequent outcome in defense, aerospace, civil infrastructure, shipbuilding and many other domains. Although many programs are executed effectively, those that aren't slip months to years to decades behind schedule, overrun budgets by millions or billions of dollars, and become public black eyes. Often there are multiple interacting causes for poor program performance—for example change of key leaders, optimistic technology forecasts, inexperienced workforce, or politics. Yet study after study concludes that ineffective system engineering is a leading or contributing cause for almost every poorly performing program. For the past several decades there have been multiple and constant pleas to improve effectiveness of system engineering.

What have been the responses and how effective have they been? Universities, industry, and military organizations have launched system engineering training courses, undergraduate and graduate degrees, and certification programs. The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) has become established as the professional society for systems engineering. Its many working groups are communities of practice for systems engineers. Organizations have established high level system engineer leadership positions to bring management attention and priority to this aspect of their operations. Research efforts have been funded to devise new approaches or better understand the practice of systems engineering. New tools and metaphors for system engineering are being developed: Model-Based System Engineering, modeling languages, and requirements management software tools are three examples. A newly emerging approach is the Meta program which will utilize a metalanguage with an aim to “enable ‘fabless’ development of systems that are probabilistically verifiable as correct by design, compressing the cycle time by removing manufacturing from the loop”,1 Although each of these responses have had or will have a positive impact, none of them individually or all of them collectively seem to have overcome the ineffectiveness of systems engineering in many applications.

This book presents a new response to the need to improve system engineering effectiveness. It is a response that supports and enables established, proven systems engineering methods to become more effective. It is a response in harmony with others, not in competition. It is a response based upon the knowledge base and proven effectiveness of lean six sigma thinking in many other functional domains. Lean which originated at Toyota is not a set of tools but a way of thinking. Lean Systems Engineering is not some kind of new fangled systems engineering. It is a way to make the best systems engineering better by applying common sense continuous process improvement approaches.

Lean for Systems Engineering is the first major work in the emerging field of lean systems engineering. The author lays out the fundamentals of Lean Thinking and how it applies to system engineering. The book is rich with citations to classic and recent literature, and provides a scholarly basis for the main product that is introduced - Lean Enablers for System Engineering (LEfSE). LEfSE is a compilation of best practices or “dos and don'ts” to supplement established system engineering practices. A major portion of the book is devoted to descriptive and useful information regarding the LEfSE and how to adopt and apply them. Although new and not yet widely deployed, the book presents encouraging results from early adopters of LEfSE. The implementation cost is very modest and the gains are significant: return on investment of 5% and reduction of waste or cycle time of 20–40%.

The Lean Enablers for System Engineering product is an outgrowth of the INCOSE Lean Systems Engineering Working Group. I was fortunate to be an early participant in this working group and play some role in the formation of LEfSE. But I was also wise enough to stand aside and let Bo Oppenheim's passion, experience and abilities to get things done lead this group to its successful outcome. I am very pleased to see this effort culminate in this new book in which Bo lays out the fundamentals of lean systems engineering, the history of the LEfSE development, and the details of this new product.

Lean for System Engineering is targeted at the practitioner who is trying to make systems engineering more effective in her or his organization or program. Yet its scholarly underpinnings make the text very suitable for teachers. Educators and trainers who wish to weave lean thinking into their systems engineering curriculum will find this an invaluable text.

I encourage readers who find value in lean for systems engineering to become involved in the INCOSE Lean Systems Engineering Working Group. It would be

especially valuable for you to share your experiences in applying or teaching Lean Enablers for System Engineering so that this ongoing effort can continue to become better and better.

Earll M. Murman

MIT Ford Professor of Engineering Emeritus

Port Townsend, WA

Notes

1 Aviation Week and Space Technology, Nov 8, 2010, pp 72–75.

Preface

This book was written for two purposes—to popularize the important emerging field termed Lean Systems Engineering, and to serve as a reference text for the first major product created under it: Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LEfSE).

Balance between technical and business success is one of the critical aspects of high-quality Systems Engineering. Regretfully, during the past decade, in some government programs inadequate incentives tended to throw the balance off. Namely, system or mission assurance was incentivized at the expense of budget and schedule. This book describes how Lean Thinking is applied to Systems Engineering to achieve both technical and business successes.

Lean Thinking, or simply Lean, has been applied in many domains, including manufacturing, supply chain management, product development, administration, accounting, healthcare, and government, in each case creating significant, well-documented benefits. Lean dramatically reduced car development and production times and costs while increasing product quality and stakeholder satisfaction, and became a standard practice in most manufacturing industries.

Lean Systems Engineering should be regarded as the process of amending the well-established and sound traditional Systems Engineering process with the wisdom of Lean Thinking, rather than replacing Systems Engineering with a new body of knowledge. Most emphatically, Lean Systems Engineering does not mean “less systems engineering,” but rather better Systems Engineering, with better preparations of the enterprise processes, people, and tools; better program planning and frontloading; better workflow management; and better program management and leadership with higher levels of responsibility, authority, and accountability. Under the Lean Systems Engineering philosophy, system success or mission assurance is non-negotiable, and any task which is legitimately needed for success must be included in the program. The benefits of Lean Systems Engineering are immediately visible in better Systems Engineering processes, as well as in the streamlined execution of the program, with less waste, waiting, and rework; more predictable and robust program flow; lower overall program cost and shorter schedule, and creation of better value to the customer. The fundamental feature of Lean Systems Engineering is to perform all preparations and planning of the people, processes, tools, and individual tasks well enough so that the right tasks can be executed right the first time, creating customer value while minimizing waste.

Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LEfSE) is the first major practical product created under Lean Systems Engineering and is the main topic of this book. LEfSE is a checklist of 147 practices formulated as dos and don'ts of Systems Engineering and some closely related aspects of Product Development (PD) and Enterprise Management, including supply chain management. The intent of LEfSE is to offer comprehensive and actionable practices to the profession, with the objective of improving overall performance of Systems Engineering and the PD program it serves; strengthen the value created by the program; increase the level of satisfaction of stakeholders; and reduce waste, program cost, and time. Most of the effort in developing Lean Systems Engineering and the LEfSE was conducted by the Lean Systems Engineering Working Group (LSE WG) of INCOSE. This was an intensive and rigorous two-year process involving 14 experts from industry, academia, and government, supported by members of the WG. Version 1.0 of LEfSE was released to INCOSE and to the public in January 2009. In 2010, the LEfSE were recognized with two following prestigious awards:

The INCOSE Product of the YearThe Shingo Award for Research and Publication

These independent recognitions from both Systems Engineering and Lean communities are regarded as an important step in validating Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering.

After the LEfSE were released to the public, the author and several of his colleagues on the development team were invited to offer numerous (40 at the time of this writing) workshops, tutorials, webinars, and seminars to industry, government, INCOSE meetings, and universities in the U.S., China, Finland, France, Italy, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Over 2000 participants took part in these professional events, generally excellently received. In many of these sessions participants asked for more explicit information about the enablers than was possible to present in the short sessions. This book is a direct response to these requests.

Both SE and Lean are a mix of art and science, and the art of effective teaming plays a critical role in SE. Some programs can be compared to the effort of climbing Mt. Everest or competitive racing in a storm—extraordinary teams pursuing difficult challenges against heavy odds. The Apollo, U2, F117, Boeing 747, nuclear submarine, I products from Apple, and the Prius car programs come to mind as examples. Such programs inspire young people to choose a career in engineering. The best programs require leadership, teamwork, enthusiasm, passion, inner energy, and joy, in addition to competence and experience. These elements have a prominent place in the book.

The material presented in the book is broad in scope, non-mathematical, and it applies to the development of all types of complex systems in all domains, both in commercial and government programs. We hope that LEfSE will benefit Systems Engineers and other Product Development engineers and managers, civilian and military professionals involved in systems acquisition both in industry and government, project managers, and faculty and students of these fields.

Bohdan W. Oppenheim

Santa Monica, CA

May 3, 2011

Acknowledgments

Many people contributed to the development of knowledge captured in this book. The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), a most friendly and supportive professional society of Systems Engineers, served as a hospitable home for most of the activities described in the book. INCOSE enabled the project with workshops, symposia, web space, and friendly administrative support, and recognized the work with the INCOSE 2009 Best Product Award.

The Lean Systems Engineering Working Group (LSE WG) of INCOSE was initiated to develop and mature the knowledge of Lean Systems Engineering. Many members of the WG, too numerous to list by name (the current membership of 200 individuals is available on the INCOSE site), supported the development of 147 practices we term Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LEfSE) which are the main subject of this book. LEfSE were developed by the two following teams organized under the LSE WG:

Concept-to-Beta Team: Dr. Earll Murman, Ford Professor of Engineering Emeritus, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, team leader; Col. James Horejsi, Chief Engineer, U.S. Space and Missile Command, ret.; James Zehmer, Vice President, Toyota ABC, Long Beach, California; Dr. Larry Earnest, Project Manager and lead Systems Engineer, Northrop Grumman; Michael Schaviatello, Project Manager, Boeing Satellite Development Co.; Deborah Secor and Ray Jorgensen, Systems Engineering Managers, Rockwell Collins; and the author, Bohdan (“Bo”) Oppenheim, Professor of Systems Engineering, Loyola Marymount University.

Prototype Team: Dr. Larry Earnest (vide); Raymond Jorgensen (vide), Ron Lyells, Honeywell; Bohdan Oppenheim (vide), team leader; Uzi Orion, ELOP, Israel; David Ratzer, Rockwell Collins; Deborah Secor (vide); Dr. Hillary G. Sillitto, UK MoD Abbey Wood; Dr. Stan Weiss, Consulting Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Director of Systems Engineering, Stanford University; and Dr. Avigdor Zonnenshain, Rafael, Israel.

Each enabler was originally formulated as a crisp sentence. In this book, I expanded each enabler into a page-long table, adding explanations, interpretations, implementation suggestions, lagging factors, and recommended reading lists, and presented the tables in Chapter 7. I alone take responsibility for all these interpretations.

Earlier this year, my colleagues and I published a full-length paper [Oppenheim, Murman, Secor, 2010] describing the development of LEfSE. Chapters 2, 3, 4.1, 5, and 6 of this book contain several long passages adapted from the article. I adopted Chapter 4.2 from my earlier article [Oppenheim, 2004].

My special gratitude goes to Professor Earll Murman and Deborah Secor, co-authors of the LEfSE paper, great friends, colleagues, and extraordinary leaders. Earll Murman initiated the LEfSE project and led the Beta Team. Deb Secor co-led the project from the beginning and has served as co-Chair and extraordinary co-leader of the INCOSE Lean SE Working Group. They generously contributed their time, leadership, wisdom, expertise, experience, and enthusiasm to the development of Lean Systems Engineering and Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering in critical ways that help make it a success. I am very grateful to Deb for reviewing the tables in Chapter 7 and making valuable suggestions.

Dr. Donna Rhodes, MIT, one of the early pioneers of Lean Systems Engineering, contributed meritorious comments and authored or supervised numerous research projects from which this project benefited. Drs. Eric Rebentisch and Hugh McManus from the MIT LAI and Dr. Stan Weiss of Stanford University led research in many important Lean areas used throughout this project.

I am grateful to Mr. Jeff Doyle and his Systems Engineering team at Northrop Grumman for sharing their practical experience with me.

Gratitude is due to all individuals, too numerous to list by name, who participated in the lengthy surveys critically important in the LEfSE project.

Paulos Ashebir, Jeffrey Dorey, and Eugene Plotkin, Mechanical Engineering and Systems Engineering graduate students at Loyola Marymount University, served as the capable and enthusiastic Research Assistants on the LEfSE project. The mapping of the enablers onto the SE processes listed in Appendix 2 was performed by Dana Makiewicz as a part of his MS capstone project. The mapping was requested by INCOSE, with the intent of including it into a future edition of the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook, but the organization has not yet approved the text included in Appendix 2. Eugene Plotkin and Jeff Dorey created Figure 6.1. Most of the figures have been redrawn to publication standards by Jeff Dorey. I am grateful to Paulos Ashebir for selecting the quotes from literature, which are included in many enabler tables.

I am immensely grateful to all my graduate students at Loyola Marymount University, too numerous to mention by name, and to fellow faculty who brought invaluable real-life Systems Engineering examples to my attention, which stimulated many ideas presented in this work.

I am grateful to my son Peter W. Oppenheim for his help in proofreading the entire manuscript. Any remaining imperfections are my fault and not his.

I am very grateful to the wonderful production team at John Wiley & Sons: Kuzhali of Laserwords, George Telecki, Editor, and Kellsee Chu, Production Editor.

List of Enablers and Subenablers in Chapter 7

List of Figures and Numbered Text Boxes

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Introducing Lean Systems Engineering and Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering

This book was written for two purposes: to popularize the emerging field termed Lean Systems Engineering (LSE), and to serve as a textbook and reference for the first major product created under it: Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LEfSE).

The discipline of Systems Engineering (SE) was created to help with the development of complex systems that must work unconditionally. It was first shaped in the ballistic missile program by Si Ramo1 and Dean Wooldridge in 1954, with the first formal contract to perform systems engineering and technical assistance (SETA). Under this contract, Ramo and Wooldridge developed some of the first principles for SE and applied them to the ballistic missile program—considered one of the most successful major technology development efforts ever undertaken by the U.S. government [Jacobsen, 2001]. SE is the practical engineering realization based on systems thinking, a comprehensive design process of a system that satisfies all customer needs during an entire system life cycle. The process demonstrates reliable execution of system development programs and leads to extraordinary technological successes in space, air, naval, and ground systems and weapons. The International Council on System Engineering (INCOSE), the professional society of Systems Engineers, offers the following definition of Systems Engineering:

Systems Engineering

(SE) is an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems. It focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting requirements, and then proceeding with design synthesis and system validation while considering the complete problem: operations, cost and schedule, performance, training and support, test, manufacturing, and disposal. SE considers both the business and the technical needs of all customers with the goal of providing a quality product that meets the user needs. INCOSE

Balance between technical and business success is one of the critical aspects of high-quality SE. Regretfully, during the past decade, in some government programs inadequate incentives tended to throw the balance off. Namely, system or mission assurance was incentivized while short program schedule and low cost were not. In consequence, in many recent programs the schedule and budget were exceeded, and the final schedules and budgets were significantly extended beyond comparable programs of earlier periods. In extreme cases, instead of engineering complex systems, the SE process has deteriorated to a complex bureaucracy of program artifacts with no technical success in sight. This book describes how Lean Thinking is applied as a “rescue” to SE, to achieve both technical and business successes.

Lean Thinking (or, briefly, Lean) is a holistic paradigm that originated at Toyota2 and focused on delivering value to the customer while removing waste from all activities.

Lean dramatically reduced car development and production times and costs while increasing product quality and stakeholder satisfaction, and became a standard practice in most manufacturing industries. Inspired by these successes, Lean was applied in many other domains, including supply chain management, product development, administration, accounting, healthcare, and government, in each case creating significant well documented benefits.

Lean Thinking (Lean):

“Lean Thinking is the dynamic, knowledge-driven, and customer-focused process through which all people in a defined enterprise continuously eliminate waste with the goal of creating value.” LAI EdNet

Lean Systems Engineering (LSE) is an emerging field representing the synergy of SE and Lean.

Lean Systems Engineering (LSE):

The application of lean wisdom, principles, practices and tools to systems engineering in order to enhance the delivery of value to system's stakeholders. LSE Working Group

The Lean in Lean SE should be regarded as the process of amending the well-established, traditional SE process with the wisdom of Lean Thinking, rather than replacing SE with a new body of knowledge. Put emphatically:

Lean Systems Engineering:

does not mean “less systems engineering,” but rather more and better SE, with better preparations of the enterprise processes, people and tools; better program planning and frontloading; better workflow management; and better program management and leadership with higher levels of responsibility, authority, and accountability. The benefits of LSE are immediately visible in better SE processes, as well as in the streamlined execution of the program. There is less waste, waiting, and rework; more predictable and robust program flow; lower overall program cost and shorter schedule, and creation of better value to the customer.

The fundamental feature of LSE is to perform all preparations and planning of the people, processes, tools, and individual tasks well enough so that the tasks can be executed right the first time,3 creating customer value while minimizing waste. Under the LSE philosophy, system success or mission assurance is non-negotiable, and any task which is legitimately needed for success must be included in the program. It should be well-planned and executed with minimum waste.

Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering (LEfSE) is the first major practical product created under LSE, and is the main topic of this book. LEfSE is a checklist of 147 practices formulated as dos and don'ts of SE and some closely related aspects of Product Development (PD) and Enterprise Management (EM), including supply chain management. The intent of LEfSE is to offer comprehensive and actionable practices to the profession, with the objective of improving overall performance of SE and the PD program it serves; strengthen the value created by the program; increase the level of satisfaction of stakeholders; and reduce waste, program cost, and time. Most of the effort in developing LSE and the LEfSE was conducted by the LSE Working Group (LSE WG) of INCOSE. This was an intensive and rigorous two-year process by 14 experts, supported by members of the WG, and endorsed by surveys and by benchmarking with recent NASA and Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations for system development.

The surveys confirmed that practitioners regard LEfSE as both important, and not yet widely used. Benchmarking showed excellent convergence between LEfSE on one hand and NASA and GAO recommendations on the other, with LEfSE usually more detailed, comprehensive, and actionable than the GAO recommendations. The development of LEfSE is summarized in Chapter 6 of this book.

Version 1.0 of LEfSE was released to INCOSE and to the public in January 2009. In 2010 the LEfSE were recognized with two following prestigious awards:

The INCOSE Product of the YearThe Shingo Award for Research and Publication

These independent recognitions from both SE and Lean communities are regarded as an important step in validating LEfSE.

After the LEfSE were released to the public on the INCOSE web page,4 the author and several of his colleagues on the development team were invited to offer numerous (forty at the time of this writing) workshops, tutorials, webinars, and seminars to industry, governments, INCOSE meetings, and universities in the U.S., China, Finland, France, Italy, Israel, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Over 2000 participants took part in these professional events, generally excellently received. In many of these sessions, participants asked for more explicit information about the enablers than was possible to present in the short sessions. This book is a direct response to these requests.

As already mentioned, this book is intended as both an introductory textbook on LSE and a textbook and reference for Lean Enablers for SE. The material presented is broad in scope and it applies to the development of all types of complex systems in all domains, both in commercial and government programs. We hope that LEfSE will benefit Systems Engineers and other PD engineers and managers, professionals involved in systems acquisition both in industry and government, project managers, and faculty and students of these fields.

Even though the material presented in this book applies to all domains and all program types, government programs are mentioned most often for two reasons. First, SE is mandatory in such programs while it is not in commercial programs, thus the body of experience from government programs is significantly larger. Second, the amount of waste in governmental programs tends to be significantly higher than in commercial programs, which makes it a fertile ground for Lean thinkers.

The author chooses to explain selected enablers by comparing them to some current industrial and governmental practices that are less than perfect. The author hopes that the reader will accept this approach as constructive criticism leading to improvement of our programs, rather than “bashing” of the traditional practices. To repeat with emphasis: The traditional SE process is regarded as sound, capable of delivering successful complex systems, but not as good as it could be, and which we therefore propose to improve using Lean.

Both SE and Lean are a mix of art and science, and the art of effective teaming plays a critical role in SE. Some programs can be compared to the effort of climbing Mt. Everest or competitive racing in a storm—extraordinary teams pursuing difficult challenges against heavy odds. The Apollo, U2, F117, Boeing 747, nuclear submarine, and the Prius car programs come to mind as examples. Such programs inspire young people to choose a career in engineering. In sad contrast, creation of bureaucratic SE artifacts in isolated cubicles is not what inspiriting engineering was promised to be. The best programs must involve leadership, teamwork, enthusiasm, passion, inner energy, and joy in addition to hard competence and experience. The author tried to include these intangible elements in the book, in order to enthuse the reader about the potential of Lean, which is capable of drawing the best from us and motivating us to engineer extraordinary systems using extraordinarily efficient programs.

SE is a part (in fact, the most critical part for success) of the larger Product Development (PD) effort. SE has been called the nervous system of PD [Hitchens, 2007], planning, controlling, and monitoring in real time all functions of the PD “body.” However, many enterprises have structured SE to be a separate function (department) that supports all their PD programs. This led to a linguistic dichotomy, “SE and PD”. In this book the term “SE and PD” should be interpreted to mean “SE and other elements, parts, activities, etc. of PD.”

The traditional SE process is described in a number of manuals: INCOSE SE Handbook, the ISO 15288 standard, NASA and Department of Defense SE Manuals, Defense Acquisition University manuals, and numerous manuals created by individual defense and civilian companies. Arguably, the manuals describe essentially the same body of knowledge and the same traditional SE process with varying degrees of detail, emphasis, and user friendliness. Since the present project has been carried out under the auspices of INCOSE, and because the author regards the INCOSE SE Handbook v.3.2, 2010 as an excellent and user-friendly document, the present text makes references to that document only. Version 3.2 of the Handbook includes a short chapter on Lean Thinking. The first enabler of LEfSE explains that practitioners should continue using all processes described in the Handbook, adding Lean practices listed in LEfSE.

1.2 Organization of the Book

The book is organized as follows.

Chapter 2 takes the reader through a brief historical review of earlier industrial paradigms, setting Lean Thinking in the context of Total Quality Management (TQM), Concurrent Engineering (CE), and Six Sigma.

Chapter 3 presents Lean Thinking fundamentals, including the concepts of value, waste, and the process of creating value without waste, as captured into the six Principles of Lean Thinking. The Principles are called Value, Map the Value Stream, Flow, Pull, Perfection, and Respect for People. The fundamentals are included to make the book self-contained, but the reader unfamiliar with Lean will surely benefit from reading the transformational book Lean Thinking by J. Womack et al. [1996]. Readers who understand Lean manufacturing but have not been exposed to Lean Product Development (LPD) should read this chapter because it sets Lean fundamentals in the PD context.

The ability to recognize waste in Product Development is a critical skill in LSE. Waste should be regarded as a productivity reserve. Exposing waste aids in streamlining the program and creating time and cost buffers, thus helping the program to meet schedule and budget. Some wastes are self-evident and incontestable (e.g., waiting, or defects), but others may be less obvious, particularly to Systems Engineers who have to struggle for enough budget and time to execute a program well. Therefore, the discussion of waste is an important part of the book.

Chapter 4 describes the fast growing field of Lean Product Development, including a review of literature and the progress to date. Arguments are presented in support of the thesis that the application of Lean Thinking to Product Development has become mature enough for immediate use in programs.

In Chapter 4, Section 4.2 describes a highly efficient holistic process called Lean Product Development Flow (LPDF) developed by Oppenheim [2004] for organizing smaller and low-risk PD programs. LPDF was created as a contribution to LSE, but is an earlier and totally separate effort from LEfSE.

Chapter 5 presents the emerging field of LSE. We start with a review of recent literature documenting both successes and problems in technology programs and justify the need for better SE, with less waste, leading to LSE. We also introduce the INCOSE Lean SE Working Group. This chapter ends with a discussion of value in LSE.

Chapter 6 describes the strategy used for the development of LEfSE, and the endorsement steps. The interested reader will find details of the development process in a comprehensive journal article by Oppenheim, Murman, and Secor (2010), which are not repeated here. We only briefly describe the endorsement efforts by peers, including a survey completed by practicing Systems Engineers, and benchmarking of LEfSE with recent recommendations, which were published by NASA and Government Accountability Office (GAO) when this project was nearing completion. The reader will find that the survey ranked all enablers as (paraphrasing) either important or very important, and not yet used widely, confirming the importance and the need for LEfSE in the SE practice. The LEfSE have been found to be totally convergent with the NASA and GAO recommendations, but are more comprehensive, detailed, and actionable.

The version of LEfSE presented in this book is regarded as mature enough for presentation to the professional community. However, the intent is to continue involving the community of practice in gathering data and experiences to continue improving the LEfSE product.

Chapter 7 is the main and longest part of this book. It presents the enablers in a standard tabular form for easy reference. The enablers are organized under the six Lean Principles. The text under each Lean Principle begins with a short summary of the listed enablers.

Each enabler or closely related group of enablers is described in a separate table listing the value promoted and the waste prevented by the enabler(s), an explanation of the enabler(s), recommended implementation, lagging factors, and recommended reading list.

In most cases, each table covers only one enabler. In other tables, several closely related enablers are discussed together in order to facilitate reading and implementation.

Chapter 8 contains general guidance for implementing LEfSE. We hope by that time, the reader will be familiar with LEfSE in Chapter 7. We suggest how to select and prioritize the enablers for implementation, and recommend practical steps.

In Section 8.2 we include some early feedback and results from the companies and programs trying to implement LEfSE, and other relevant studies. At the time of this writing, some of these success stories are still fragmentary and lacking scholarly rigor, but they demonstrate the powerful potential of the Lean approach. The sources claim that with only a few Lean enablers implemented, various program time/cost elements were reduced between 20 to 40%, achieved a ROI of 5, and improved the workplace morale, product quality, and customer satisfaction.

Appendix 1 summarizes the content of the INCOSE Lean SE Working Group webpage.

Appendix 2 presents a mapping of Lean enablers onto the 26 processes listed in the INCOSE SE Handbook version 3.2. This mapping project was initiated by INCOSE, but has not yet been approved by that organization. This appendix also contains a short discussion of program lifecycle frameworks other than the SE processes.

Two glossaries are included—one for abbreviations, and one for idioms, colloquialisms, and foreign expressions used in the fields of SE and Lean. These items are written in bold italic font in the text. The italic font alone is used when introducing important new terms, and for emphasis. Bold font (as in the next sentence) is used for greater visibility when navigating through these pages.

How to use this book? Those readers who are eager to become productive can skip Chapter 2, with its historical review, and Chapter 6, which covers the development of LEfSE. Readers who are experts in Lean Thinking and familiar with fundamentals of Lean Product Development may go directly to Section 4.2 of Chapter 4 for use as a reference for the LPDF method, and to Chapter 7, as a reference for improving the practice of SE with LEfSE. Readers who are new to Lean Thinking should first read Chapters 1 and 3–5.

Notes

1 Si Ramo once told F. Brown [SELP Director, Loyola Marymount University, personal communication] the first use of systems engineering in modern times could be said to have started at AT&T when they faced assembling a world-wide telephone system. AT&T, however, did not consider it systems engineering and did not use that name.

2 Throughout its history, Toyota has demonstrated an amazing and unprecedented record of quality and has served as the ideal for best corporate practices in a broad range of activities—product development, manufacturing, supply chain management, enterprise management, and exemplary human relations. The two well-published pillars of Toyota success are Respect for People and Continuous Improvement. A good fraction of the enablers presented in his book have been based on these extraordinary Toyota practices. The trust in Toyota was temporarily shaken in late 2000s when media started publishing stories about the unintended acceleration of Toyota cars. In January 2010, Mr. Akio Toyoda, the newly appointed CEO of Toyota Motor Co., during the public hearing by U.S. Congress, started with words of apology for the apparent unintended acceleration problems of some recent Toyota cars. In his testimony he said: “Quite frankly, I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick. I would like to point out here that Toyota's priority has traditionally been the following: First; Safety, Second; Quality, and Third; Volume. These priorities became confused… and I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced” (ABC News, Feb. 24, 2010). Media accused Toyota of ignoring the problem and blamed the company for hundreds of accidents, including fatal ones. This dramatic story was reversed in 2011. In early 2011 J. Liker and T. Ogden published a book Toyota Under Fire which provided evidence completely exonerating Toyota. The book quotes the results of a major study performed on request of U.S. Congress by NASA under contract to the U.S. National Highway and Transportation Safety Board. The results were announced by Secretary Ray LaHood on Feb.8, 2010. NASA [2011] results were summarized as follows: “Two mechanical safety defects were identified by NHTSA…sticking accelerator pedals and a design flow that enabled accelerator pedals to become trapped by floor mats. These are the only known causes for the reported unintended acceleration incidents. Toyota recalled nearly 8 million vehicles in the U.S. for these two defects. The Liker and Ogden [2011] book indicates that the numerous reported cases of unintended acceleration were caused by drivers using a wrong pedal, a phenomenon known to all car companies and highway police alike; and that there was only one proven deadly accident due to pedal entrapment, and one other accident caused by the car owner using a wrong floor mat. Thus, strictly speaking, Mr. Toyoda's apology turned out to be unnecessary, but, characteristically for Toyota, it was never withdrawn. In addition, Toyota instituted numerous additional organizational safeguards and precautions, including a brake override system that stops the car even when the gas pedal is wide open. This dramatic episode demonstrates the uninterrupted focus on safety, quality, and customer satisfaction by Toyota.

3 The expression right the first time refers to both single-pass tasks as well as engineering iterations and other complex activities, which also must be regarded as tasks that need to be well planned, designed, and executed so that they can be completed robustly in a predictable time without wasteful rework.

4 The web page of the Lean Systems Engineering Working Group of INCOSE is public and accessible to everyone. Appendix 1 provides the web address and a summary of the site content.

Chapter 2

A Brief History of Recent Management Paradigms

“A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself”.

Didacus Stella

2.1 From TQM to Six Sigma and Lean

Three 1970s era events in the United States provided a fertile ground for subsequent dynamic changes of industrial paradigms: (1) oil embargoes, which made small cars attractive to consumers; (2) the overtaking of the consumer electronics and auto markets by higher quality and less expensive Japanese imports; and (3) a widespread perception that U.S. manufacturing was falling behind international competition, particularly in quality. In 1980, NBC TV broadcast a two-hour program titled “If Japan Can… Why Can't We?” opening U.S. eyes to a new management paradigm named “Total Quality Management” (TQM), which was sweeping industry by storm in the early 1980s [NBC, June 24, 1980]. Led by Edward Deming [1982] this was an attempt to adopt successful Japanese industrial management methods for U.S. industry. A strong message of TQM was that pursuit of higher quality is compatible with lower costs. Inexpensive and high-quality automobiles and consumer electronic goods imported from Japan made this notion self-evident to U.S. consumers, but not necessarily to U.S. industry.

TQM emphasized a total approach to quality by integrating management, processes, and tools, and developing a business strategy focused on customer satisfaction. It promoted continuous improvement of all processes and popularized improvement tools such as a bottom-up employee suggestion system, quality circles, quick reaction Kaizen teams, and process variability reduction using Statistical Process Control and Design of Experiments. TQM emphasized the importance of corporate culture based on respect for people, and employee empowerment as prerequisites for continuous improvement and relied heavily on self-motivation of employees. It also promoted designing quality into both products and processes, rather than relying on the final inspection.

TQM received strong support from the U.S. federal government, including the Department of Defense [DoD, 1988]. Following the Japanese E. Deming Award, the Department of Commerce initiated the Malcolm Baldrige Award in 1987 as a motivational recognition of the best U.S. companies in three categories: manufacturing, service, and small business. The award uses a point score that was based on the above TQM elements. About eight years into the TQM period, Costello [1988], in his capacity as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisitions, presented an alarming report to the Secretary of Defense about serious problems plaguing the U.S. commercial and military industrial base, including foreign competition, poor quality of both products and business management, fragmented research and development, low quality of public education, and declining numbers of engineers and scientists. Four years later, Costello [1992], reinforced this report with a white paper about the state of U.S. industry, recommending wide-ranging improvement of the manufacturing sector, streamlining regulations, better means for technology sharing, and aggressive support for small business.

In 2000, the International Standards Organization (ISO) issued a quality standard denoted ISO 9000:2000, which captures many of TQM elements.

The application of TQM to U.S industry had mixed outcomes. While quality improved, especially in the auto industry, profits did not follow proportionately. Even the quality improvements alone failed in many companies that tried TQM [Paton, 1994]. The earlier pessimism in the manufacturing industry continued and contributed to the subsequent export of nearly 60% of commercial manufacturing to cheaper labor countries.

The lack of widespread business success made TQM vulnerable to criticisms and opened the way to new ideas. Business Week [Byrne, 1997] declared TQM a “dead fad,” blaming TQM's “lack of teeth” in implementation. While today the term TQM has receded, most of the key elements of TQM have endured and are integral to Lean Thinking [Murman et al., 2002].

In late 1980s the Concurrent Engineering (CE) industrial paradigm became popular and was proposed as a way to shorten the weapons system acquisition cycle [Winner et al., 1988]. CE promoted simultaneous and integrated design of product and subsequent phases (manufacturing, assembly, operations, etc.), replacing the traditional disjointed and serial effort. An important component of CE was multifunctional design teams, sometimes called Integrated Product Teams or IPTs, which included representatives from subsequent phases in the upfront engineering design. CE, when effectively implemented with electronic design tools and workforce training, led to dramatic reduction in design rework and, consequently, cost and schedule [see Hernandez, 1995]. CE contributed major improvements to U.S. product development and engineering, and spawned significant new design methodologies [see Clausing, 1994; Ulrich and Eppinger, 2008]. TQM and CE made important contributions to major new aircraft products in the 1990s, such as the Boeing 777 and Cessna Citation-X [Haggerty and Murman, 2006]. As with TQM, CE principles are embedded in current day Lean Thinking [Murman et al., 2002; McManus 2004].

In the early 1990s, TQM evolved into another quality initiative called Six Sigma, arguably with “better teeth.” According to Wedgewood [2007], “Six Sigma is a systematic methodology to home in on key factors that drive performance of a process, set them at the best levels, and hold them there for all time.” Originating at Motorola and relying on rigorous measurement and control, Six Sigma focused on systematic reduction of process variability from all sources of variation: machines, methods, materials, measurements, people, and environment [Murman et al., 2002]. Like TQM, Six Sigma aims to achieve predictable, repeatable, and capable processes, and defect-free production, where parts and components are built to exacting specifications. But unlike the motivational TQM, it achieves this by rigorous data collection and statistical analysis, as well as rigorous training of leaders.1 Following a similar path as TQM and CE, the Six Sigma movement spawned new Design for Six Sigma methodologies (e.g., Yang and El-Haik, 2003).

Six Sigma was not free of problems: it often was implemented with a costly bureaucracy, introducing the waste of measuring waste, and was criticized for being too top-down and for displacing two other critically important continuous improvement tools of TQM—small quick-reaction Kaizen and the bottom-up employee suggestion system, which Toyota credits for half of its success [Oppenheim, 2006]. Six Sigma can also be prone to sub-optimization by focusing too narrowly on process improvement for a process that may not be needed. Murman described this deficiency as “a focus on the job being done right, but not necessarily on the right job” [Murman et al., 2002]. It was the next step in the industrial evolution, called Lean, which provided the integrated focus on the right job and doing the job right, and also on the management culture needed for both.

The term Lean as an industrial paradigm was introduced in the United States in the bestselling book The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production, published by the MIT International Motor Vehicle Program [Womack et al., 1990] and elegantly popularized in their second bestseller Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation [Womack and Jones, 1996]. The authors identified a fundamentally new industrial paradigm based on the Toyota Production System. The paradigm is based on relentless elimination of waste from all enterprise operations and requires the continuous improvement cycle that turns all front-line workers into problem solvers to eliminate waste. Lean strives for minimum waste to deliver high quality and defect-free products meeting customer demand just-in-time, at the rate ordered, with minimum inventories, at minimum cost, and in minimum time. Lean is driven by a unique management culture of respect, empowerment, openness, and teamwork. Factories adopting Lean observed direct and dramatic improvements of operations and increases in profits. Womack and Jones [1996] described six manufacturing case studies that demonstrated reductions of cost, lead time, and inventory of up to 90%, with simultaneous improvements in product quality and work morale across a wide range of company types and sizes. More dramatically, lead time and cost reductions on the order of 30 to 50% were realized routinely after only a few days of implementation on the factory floor, by a simple rearrangement of machines into the flow [LEI, 2007]. After the multi-year implementation efforts of TQM, CE, or Six Sigma, this was a revelation. Within a few years, Lean production has become the established manufacturing paradigm pursued by all competitive factories.

Lean Thinking, or more briefly Lean, as used in this book, is an evolutionary industrial paradigm incorporating elements from earlier paradigms of TQM and CE, as well as elements of Six Sigma. In common with TQM and CE, Lean focuses on designed-in/built-in quality, Edward Deming continuous improvement cycles, and engagement of frontline workforce in process improvement. It goes beyond TQM and CE to adopt a value stream focus, connecting tasks and processes into the flow of value-adding effort and a relentless pursuit of waste elimination. While Lean, TQM, and CE all focus on process improvement, Lean particularly focuses on streamlining flow between the processes. Sharing with Six Sigma a data-driven approach to eliminate process variation, it differs by being more bottom-up in its improvement strategy and less reliant on formalized qualifications of improvement experts. As with the other improvement paradigms, successful Lean implementation relies on committed leadership and an enterprise-wide approach across all functions, including systems engineering.

As already mentioned, Lean incorporates many of the TQM, CE, and Six Sigma principles and practices. However it goes beyond them to adopt a holistic value stream approach and relentless waste elimination. The value stream represents the linked end-to-end activities that turn raw material or information into products, systems, and services needed by the customer. Waste represents those activities that do not directly contribute to customer value. Often these are activities taking place between valued added (VA) activities, such as waiting. Lean strives for optimum flow with no blockages or unplanned rework.2

Toyota's original “father” of Lean, [Ohno, 1988, foreword by N. Bodek, page ix] summarized it thus: “All we are doing is looking at the time line from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that time line by removing the non-value added wastes.”

The successes of Lean in repeatable manufacturing led to a popular misconception that Lean does not apply to one-off applications such as engineering projects or SE. In such projects, the deliverables and work content of engineering tasks are indeed one-off but many processes and individual tasks should use repeatable logic based on best engineering practices. For example, the established process for a modal analysis of a structure involves the same steps: define geometry, boundary conditions, and material properties; perform finite-element meshing; calculate the modal eigenvectors and eigenvalues; identify dangerous modes; and write the report. Such established processes exist for the vast majority of engineering applications, including SE. Therefore, it makes sense to apply the basic principles of Lean Thinking to SE.

Lean Thinking has been applied to such diverse work environments as manufacturing [e.g., Womack and Jones, 1996], product development [e.g., Ward, 2007], engineering [e.g., McManus et al., 2007], supply chain management [e.g., Bozdogan, 2004], healthcare [e.g., Graban, 2008], education [e.g., Emiliani, 2004], administration [e.g., Carter, 2008], and Enterprise Management [e.g., Jones, 2006; LESAT, 2001]. This book describes the application of Lean to Systems Engineering and how that relates to Lean Product Development.

2.2 Lean Six Sigma

Lean and Six Sigma both appeared in the post-TQM mid-1990s as seemingly competing process improvement approaches. Six Sigma, identified with Motorola and subsequently with GE, gained investor visibility and popularity. Lean, identified with Toyota, was incorrectly looked upon as limited to high-volume manufacturing applications. While Six Sigma focuses on a disciplined, top-down approach to eliminating all forms of variation, Lean focuses on value streams and relentless elimination of waste through optimizing flow. The latter relies on the former to eliminate impediments to flow, and in fact the basic principles of the two approaches are synergistic. By early 2000, most organizations adopted a blended version of the two bodies of knowledge and crafted them to meet their particular needs. Names such as Lean Six Sigma, Lean Sigma, and other less obvious combinations appeared. Today, most organizations have harmonized Lean and Six Sigma. In this book, we will continue to use the Lean nomenclature, not to exclude Six Sigma thinking, but to treat the new field Lean Systems Engineering and its first major product Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering as an integrated body of knowledge based on Lean, Six Sigma, high-performance work systems, and other process improvement approaches.

Notes

1 Following the ju-jitsu language, Six Sigma leaders are designated by “belts” of various colors denoting different levels of training and experience.

2 Some might ask how the focus on flow differs from Henry Ford's moving line mass production or from “rhapsodized industrial engineering.” Indeed there are common elements. However there are important distinctions. Lean emphasizes the importance of the frontline workers as problem solvers, unlocking the enormous human resource potential for process improvement. Lean also focuses on single piece flow with minimum inventories, which leads to cellular work arrangements. This is contrasted to the method of batch and queue practiced in traditional production.

Chapter 3

Lean Fundamentals

epigraphsource

“All we are doing is looking at the time line from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that time line by removing the non-value added wastes.”

Taiichi Ohno, Toyota's original “father” of Lean

Three concepts are fundamental to the understanding of Lean Thinking: value, waste, and the process of creating value without waste, captured into the so-called six LeanPrinciples. The concepts are described in this chapter in the general context of product development. The concepts are explained in a self-contained style to free the reader from the need to refer to other sources, but the reader who is new to Lean would benefit from first reading the classic book Lean Thinking [Womack and Jones, 1996].

A formal definition of Lean has been presented in Chapter 1. However, when considering the present Lean fundamentals, it is useful to think of Lean simply as “creation of best value with minimum waste.”

3.1 Value

At its simplest, value is what the customer says it is, considers important, and is willing to pay for. In simple applications, the customer states what he or she needs, and the contractor makes it and delivers it, hopefully satisfying or even delighting the customer. This works well when buying ice cream, but is vastly more challenging when ordering a new, complex technological system, especially for military users.1

Value is what the customer says it is, considers important, and is willing to pay for.