Workshop

An Introduction to Lean Product Development and a Tutorial on Cost-of-Delay

Donald Reinertsen | 2010 | Sweden |
Citerus is pleased to announce that Don Reinertsen, leading expert in Lean Product Development, is coming to Sweden to do a workshop based on his forthcoming book on Lean Product Development. The workshop will give insight how you can justify your actions financially and explain them in a language management understands.
About the Workshop
There are two paths to Lean Product Development (LPD). One is qualitative. It relies on copying behaviors that occur in role model companies, like Toyota. This path suggests that we can become lean by eliminating activities that add no value. Unfortunately, by following this path we can only travel a certain distance towards what LPD can be. We are blocked as soon as we reach choices of even moderate complexity.  For example, should we operate the test department at 90 percent utilization with a 4 week queue, or 80 percent utilization with a 2 week queue? Underutilized capacity is clearly waste, but so is a queue on the critical path. How do we compare these two choices?

The answer lies in the second path. Because this second path is quantitative, fewer people are prepared to use it. Nonetheless, it is ultimately the only way to conquer the complex problems that occur in real life.  If we can quantify the cost of the queue and the cost of underutilization, these two factors can be compared. The key to the quantified approach to LPD is calculating the Cost-of-Delay. With a Cost-of-Delay we can quantify the cost of queues. We can compare the cost of interventions to reduce queues with the benefits these interventions produce. We can justify our actions financially and we can explain them in a language management understands.

Citerus is pleased to announce that Don Reinertsen, the leading proponent of this quantified approach is coming to Sweden to do a workshop based on his forthcoming book on Lean Product Development.  The workshop will be divided into two activities:

An Introduction to Lean Product Development

During this session we will provide an introduction to 9 key areas of LPD:

  • Creating an economic framework
  • Reducing the cost of variability
  • Managing queues
  • Reducing batch size
  • Creating cadence
  • Using WIP constraints
  • Controlling flow
  • Accelerating feedback
  • Decentralizing control

A Tutorial on Cost of Delay

Reducing queues lies at the heart of LPD, but we cannot quantify the cost of a queue unless we know the Cost-of-Delay. Correct product development choices change depend on the value of Cost-of-Delay. In this tutorial we will show you how to properly calculate the Cost-of-Delay and how to adapt this calculation to the needs of your business. In this session we will:

  • Identify typical delay scenarios
  • Learn how to calculate the Cost-of-Delay for a specific scenario
  • Identify unique factors that may affect your cost of delay
  • Calculate a the Cost-of-Delay for a project from your business

The final calculation will require having some representative data from your own business to work with.

Citerus AB
Dragarbrunnsgatan 24
753 20 Uppsala
Tel: 018-51 51 13 | Fax: 018-51 51 95
Barnhusgatan 16 | 111 23 Stockholm
Tel: 08-56 29 53 00