The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development

31.7. Summary

The pressure is increasingly on firms to meet customer needs and marketplace demands quicker and more completely than the competition. Many firms see the development and launch of successful new products as their lifeblood, and their ability to identify and meet emerging customer needs and demands quickly as a key component of their competitive strategy. Until relatively recently, however, new product launch has been "business as usual" in many firms: marketing, manufacturing, and distribution channel decisions pertaining to launch had been made in anticipatory fashion based on early forecasts.

By including distribution and logistics more fully on the launch team, firms can become more adept at increasing supply chain flexibility and improve effectiveness and efficiency of the new product launch. Those firms employing lean launch methods have been able to accelerate time-to-market and cut lead times drastically, thereby enabling the firm to match emerging customer needs more rapidly. By postponing major decisions as long as possible, even large firms can seem to turn on a dime, match product features and production to customer demand much more effectively than before, and reduce costs through cheaper distribution and reduced manufacturing change orders gained by postponement. The Dell and Benetton examples illustrate how some of the best lean launch firms do it, and provide a starting point for analysis of one's own company in search of ways to "get lean" during ...