Lean Design - On-site workshops and train-the-trainer

We are firm believers in the concept of "train-the-trainer", and we provide a comprehensive set of products to enable your success in that area. There are circumstances, however, in which an on-site workshop by an "outside expert" can be highly beneficial. These situations include:

You are about to launch a major new project         and wish to start the team off lean.
You are implementing a train-the-trainer         program for internal facilitators.
As part of the kick-off of a major new         improvement initiative.
An executive-level workshop is needed to         achieve organizational buy-in.

Ron Mascitelli, PMP, presents his proprietary workshops to both in-company and public audiences worldwide. He currently offers three proprietary workshops: The Lean Design Workshop, which focuses on slashing manufacturing cost, and The Lean Product Development Workshop that enables development teams to dramatically reduce time-to-market. We have also recently added a third workshop to support implementation of lean product development tools and methods. The Value Stream Mapping for Lean Product Development workshop is intended for organizations that wish to focus on specific aspects of their development process for dramatic improvement. Each of these practical, hands-on workshops is available in a two-day format that covers the full suite of lean tools and techniques. An optional third day can be added to allow time for implementation planning, team questions, and company-specific problem-solving. (Note that the slides and exercises used for Mr. Mascitelli's workshops are identical to those offered in our train-the-trainer packages.) The in-house versions of these workshops have been presented to over sixty companies in ten countries, and have yielded extremely positive results, based on feedback from participants. More importantly, they have achieved measurable improvement in time-to-market, product profitability, and utilization of design resources. If your training goals are best met by a high-energy, authoritative on-site workshop that is tailored to your firm's specific needs, please contact us for information on price and availability.

The Lean Design Workshop describes a comprehensive set of practical, easily applied techniques for reducing the manufacturing cost of any product. Students will learn how to apply these powerful tools to real products, in real time, with high efficiency. The product development process represents the most complex, challenging, and, sad to say, poorly understood activity in business. However, reducing manufacturing cost is the fastest and surest way to achieve a measurable increase in profits. The practical lean design tools presented in this workshop can be applied to both new product opportunities and existing successful products, require minimal organizational change, and can yield immediate bottom-line results. Slashing costs is a great place to begin your journey toward lean design excellence.
The tools and methods discussed in this workshop are organized into an “itinerary” that follows the timeline of a typical product development project, from initial idea generation to product qualification and launch. Examples, exercises, and guidelines are provided for each tool to help the student decide whether that solution would be applicable to their situation. In this way, attendees can quickly craft an integrated cost-reduction strategy that is optimal for their products and markets, and gain enough understanding and confidence to get immediate results.

Despite an increasing need for speed and efficiency, much of the effort expended by product development teams is often unnecessary and potentially wasteful. In many cases, only one hour in eight of team members' time is spent directly creating value for their customers. The Lean Product Development Workshop presents a set of leading-edge, practical tools for slashing waste and increasing speed and efficiency. The “lean methods” described in this course enable dramatic reductions in time-to-market while freeing up valuable resources for additional project work. Firms that have embraced these practical, waste-eliminating tools have reported up to fifty-percent reduction in launch schedules, significant improvements in gross margin, and enhanced customer satisfaction. This hands-on workshop covers all aspects of the subject, including a step-by-step process for customizing your own lean process that will enable rapid, high-value product development.

Finally, a proven and highly efficient way to apply the power of value stream mapping to the product development process. This two-day “process kaizen” event allows your team to focus on a specific aspect of your development process for dramatic improvement. Once completed, participants will be able to transfer this approach to any aspect of product development. The Value Stream Mapping for Lean Product Development Workshop requires no initial training; basic value stream mapping techniques are described at the beginning of the course. This initial tutorial is followed by a series of real-time exercises in which the attendees create a current state value stream map, analyze it for potential improvement using a set of proprietary techniques, and finally generate a future state map to guide your team's improvement efforts. This hands-on workshop covers all aspects of the subject, including a step-by-step process for using VSM techniques to systematically drive out waste from initial concept development to successful product launch.