LEPD Community of Practice

LAI has an active Lean Enterprise Product Development benchmarking community of practice that was launched in 2007 and has met three times. These gatherings provide ideal opportunities for engineering managers and change agents to talk with peers and compare experiences of what works and doesn't within new product development in complex environments.

LAI’s third lean product development benchmarking event was hosted by LAI member Raytheon Missile Systems in June 2008 at the Phoenix Mars Scout Mission Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. The meeting focused on rapid innovation and quickly transforming customer needs into delivered solutions. Highlights included:

• Raytheon's vision and strategy for leveraging innovation to deliver customer solutions;
• Raytheon's lessons learned with lean innovation;
• GE's rapid innovation challenge: the 10-day locomotive;
• Visiting the Apollo 11 lunar landing site: how Raytheon, University of Arizona, and Carnegie Mellon applied lean innovation during their bid for the Google Lunar X Prize;
• Phoenix Mars Mission;
• Stanford University's Rapid Product Realization Network and entrepreneurial innovation; and
• mini-workshop led by the Institute for Lean Innovation.

For more information on this group, including upcoming meetings and opportunities to host a meeting, please contact LAI Research Associate Dr. Eric Rebentisch, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , 617.258.7773.