Product Development for the Lean Enterprise

Book Review of Michael N. Kennedy’s ‘Product Development for the Lean Enterprise: Why Toyota’s system is four times more productive and how you can implement it.’

A book that presents a ‘lean’ approach to product development. The word Toyota appears in the book, but it’s not clear whether the book claims that what it discusses is the method used by Toyota.  Kennedy’s background included 30 years at Texas Instruments. No mention of Toyota, so he apparently does not have any insider experience.

 

Using a short novel approach popularised (to my knowledge) by Eliyahu Goldratt, the book reveals one by one the various aspects of the principles involved in lean product development.

 

It’s not easy to write an engaging story. Goldratt pulled it off in his hard-to-put-down ‘The Goal’ but then did not quite achieve the same impact with his other books, notably ‘Critical Chain’. 

 

Unfortunately I didn’t find Kennedy’s storytelling to be interesting, which makes going through the book a little challenging.  Both the narrator and the characters speak in an unnatural manner, and wouldn’t be out of place in ‘The Brady Bunch’.   The characters were pretty much cardboard characters, indistinguishable from each other.  Add to that, the ratio of story-telling words to the actual ‘meat’ of the discussion is pretty high.

 

I haven’t finished reading it, but will continue and will update this review.