Simulation Based Measuring the Benefits of Converting to Lean Product Design and Development: A Case Study of Manufacturing Sector of Pakistan

Designers are facing the principal problems of effective decision making at the initial design stage of product development, which ultimately contribute to profit loss, low quality and increased time to launch the product onto the market. It requires a lot of knowledge and experience. Tools are required to analyze and ensure that crucial decisions have strong foundation before implementation. Discrete event simulation provides such a tool and has got potential to assist in decision making before final implementation. This research work aims measuring the benefits of transformation to lean product development (LPD) via simulation. Simulink-MATLAB tool was used for this purpose. The whole work is limited to design and cost estimation cells of a manufacturing company and consists of two phases. The first phase deals with the assessment of current working model of design and cost estimation cells. The areas for improvements were recognized at this phase. The proposed model for transformation to LPD was developed in the second phase. Four lean enablers namely product values, knowledge-based engineering, set-based concurrent engineering and poke-yoke were incorporated to further enhance the operation of the proposed model. This research work constitutes a useful case for practitioners. Keywords: decision making, discrete event simulation, lean product development, lean enablers