Abstract

This article explores how waste reduction approaches as found in lean thinking can be applied to engineering design in Engineer-To-Order (ETO) projects based on a multiple case study of ten companies over a 2-year period. ETO projects deliver capital goods that are customised to individual customer requirements. Customisation and ultimately value generation are achieved through an iterative engineering design process. Although inevitable, iterative engineering design allows much leeway for waste generation, expressed in higher costs and longer lead times. Accordingly, this paper investigates the iterative nature of engineering design in current practice and discusses how these iterations create wastes. It applies the concept of lean engineering design and elaborates on how this concept can eliminate wastes. The findings extend the literature on lean thinking by demonstrating its applicability to engineering design and provide a unique description of the most common wastes found in ETO projects. Furthermore, this article provides managerial implications on how lean engineering design can eliminate wastes and ultimately improve ETO project performance based on lessons learned from the case companies.

摘要

本文基于 2 年期间对 10 家公司的多个案例研究，探讨了如何将精益思想中的浪费减少方法应用于按订单设计 (ETO) 项目的工程设计。ETO 项目提供根据个别客户要求定制的资本货物。定制和最终的价值生成是通过迭代工程设计过程实现的。尽管不可避免，但迭代工程设计为废物的产生留出了很大的余地，表现为更高的成本和更长的交付周期。因此，本文研究了当前实践中工程设计的迭代性质，并讨论了这些迭代如何产生浪费。它应用了精益工程设计的概念，并详细阐述了这一概念如何消除浪费。这些发现通过证明精益思想在工程设计中的适用性扩展了关于精益思想的文献，并对 ETO 项目中发现的最常见浪费提供了独特的描述。此外，本文基于从案例公司吸取的教训，提供了关于精益工程设计如何消除浪费并最终提高 ETO 项目绩效的管理启示。