Lean product development for the automotive niche vehicle marketplace

Abstract

The automotive low volume niche vehicle marketplace is growing, evidenced by increasing media coverage and fierce competition between original equipment manufacturers. Development of niche vehicles must be lean and therefore fast to beat competitors and keep customers interested. This thesis case studies a niche vehicle product development organization which has survived within a major original equipment manufacturer for over 11 years. This work defines niche vehicles and presents process things gone right and things gone wrong which have been identified through detailed interviews. The organization's current product development enhancement strategy is also summarized. Product development value stream mapping is used to identify process improvement opportunities for leaning the major engineering activities of the niche vehicle organization. Current state maps and desired future state maps are presented. Recommendations for approaching the desired future state are discussed. Process improvement opportunities outside of engineering are identified which work toward improving the cycle time of the overall product development process. Finally, all of the recommendations are summarized and rated on their difficulty of implementation and suggestions for future research are presented.