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Details of product development related publications

“Lean product development” book	-	how to order
“An outline blueprint” manual	-	how to order
Other publications on more detailed topics

Lean product development
	by Dr Colin Mynott
	ISBN 0-9538779-0-6
	(Order direct from Westfield Publishing by phone: +44 (0)1788 822 313 )

Hundreds of books cover various aspects of the product development process, but few give a really good, concise management guide to the integrated whole process. This book fills that gap.

“Extremely valuable to anyone who develops products. Every time I re-read a chapter, more and more information emerges that I can apply. I'm giving one to all our suppliers so they can improve the value of what they supply us.”

- Dr John Goodfellow, Engineering Manager, Dexion

How you develop successful products faster at less cost - a condensation of the product development practice used by the world's most successful product developers

The fastest product developers - how they use up-front tasks to accelerate programmes
Remove wasteful activities and save half your budget
The most common reasons for projects delays. How you spot them and take avoiding action.
How you measure risk of failure and progressively reduce that risk as a programme proceeds
How you discover what customers really want - and develop products that exceed sales targets
Techniques that devise product concepts even better than you thought possible
How you optimise products with less prototype build and test
How low cost background development radically cuts programme times

			How you plan your future profits
			How you develop your products determines how you make them, what they cost to make, and your market share. It is the root cause of your direct and most of your indirect costs. It sets your medium and long-term profit.
			The lessons in this book will change how you go about your product programmes. It will become your new way to operate. It sets the foundation of your company's most effective and continuous cost-down programme.

			You will be able to manage the development of your products from start to finish using less resource to shape, set up, run and control your programmes. And you will have a methodology that produces outstandingly successful products.
			This book sets out concisely how you plan, set up and manage your product development programme from devising your strategy and planning your programme right through to putting the finished article into production.
			*“I don't think any other book on product development covers the whole subject so completely. It fills a need that has been wanting for far too long.”*
			- Mike Stoneman, Technical Director, KV Automation
			“This book covers the subject in a way that highlights the technical realities while continually focusing on the business context. Comprehensive while avoiding being superficial. Essential reading.”
			- Paul Walker, Managing Director, Malvern Instruments
			*“All directors and senior managers need to read this book.”*
			- James Hurst, Managing Director, Winkhaus UK

			What this book enables you to do
			There is a way to develop products that achieves the best result in the least time. But not two projects are identical. This book describes how you set up and run each project according to its particular needs.
			Plan your profitability
			The first chapters explain the mechanism of how and why the product development process determines wealth creation in your company. You will see how you evolve your own process to keep pace with the best.
			Cut out waste
			Then follows an analysis of why companies waste so much of their budget on work that adds cost to the product but doesn't add value for the customer. You learn how you set up your organisation so this waste becomes obvious. It could release half your development budget to develop more new products, faster. And they will be more accurately costed.
			Create a market winner
			The next chapters show you how to set up your product strategy and develop a programme that meshes your capabilities with your customers' needs. How do you discover what customers value? Why do they buy your competitors' products? Translating that knowledge into your products' features enables you to beat your sales targets. And you develop strengths in new areas.

			Seven key steps to control risk
			Then you learn the seven key development steps - what you do at each one so you don't omit tasks that incur huge costs later. And you see how to customise each project to its particular needs
			Meet tight targets
			The next chapters show how you control the programme from start to finish. Who should be involved: what should be their roles? How you involve the minimum number to achieve the result you need. How you assess risk. How you overlap phases but still keep control. How you get your staff to pull back lost time and overcome obstacles. And how you control multiple projects.
			Clever tools and techniques
			And finally, you learn what you can achieve with useful tools and techniques that cut time and cost. We add a short reference list that sets out all the “how-to” background your staff will need to know.

			Benefit from the lessons you learn
			The lessons in this book will completely change your understanding of the way you go about your product programmes. It will become a new way to operate.
			Developing a product is why most companies started. Your products are the cause of your costs - all your direct costs and most of your indirect cost.
			And their success influences your costs: better success creates higher sales that create even higher margins.

			How you develop your products governs how you make them, what they cost to make, and your market share. Because the market determines what you can charge, it thereby determines your profits.
			In the same way that they revolutionised manufacturing, some Far Eastern companies have taken strides in the way they develop their products. But few have followed in the West. Nor has there yet been a concise explanation of the totality of what the best do or why they do it. Many works have described how leading companies accomplish parts of the product development process. But no single volume sets out a concise guide for the manager that encompasses all aspects. This book aims to do just that.
			There is a way to develop products to achieve the best result in the least time, and at the lowest cost. But no two projects are identical. This book describes how you go about setting up and running your projects, according to the particular needs of each one.
			Most companies omit vital stages and don't use the best tools. Many don't understand how to devise their product strategy to transform their profits. Instead they develop products that cost too much to develop and too much to make, and which the customer often doesn't much like. You will see how to avoid these pitfalls.

			This book is written from my own experience, and from systematically gleaning information from hundreds of references. I added the lessons learnt by others. With colleagues we investigated how more than 50 really competent product developers accomplish every task. We worked with a further 300 to understand how they performed - warts and all.
			This book sets out the lessons. It's an everyday companion - a complete work - that helps you through every part of the product development process.
			“I don't find it easy to research subjects so I can apply them to improve my everyday activities. This book fills that gap. It is useful because it is short and to the point, and offers structured information without delivering unwanted detail. A really effective wake-up call for managers. And the suggested mini reference library to cover the detail is excellent.”
			- Steve Redding, Technical Manager, NiftyLift Limited

			How to order “Lean Product Development”
			Send your cheque (sorry no credit cards), payable to Dr C B Mynott, to:
			Dept WP 36 Main Road Crick Northampton NN6 7TX UK
			Lean Product Development: £58 / $90 per copy including mail and packing.
			All enquiries to Dr C B Mynott at Westfield Publishing - WP@Mynott.com

*Contents:*
	How you organise yourself to do it
	The vital complete route- map
	*Assessing risk*
	*Managing the process*
	*Tools and techniques*

“An outline blueprint” manual

The product development process - an outline blueprint

We have also generated a management manual, The product development process - an outline blueprint. Companies use it as a blueprint to devise their own internal product development process.

The manual sets out how you assess risk before you start; the seven key stages of the development process, what you do in each and when; how you control and manage it from end to end; the tools and techniques that help run your programme.

We've developed the methodology from doing it, from applying it, from working with and analyzing how the best do it from several sectors; and from analyzing the most useful related work of the past decade. It contains hitherto unpublished information and methodologies, from studying and working with leading product developers over the past four years, including able Japanese ones. The methods minimize risk, time and cost.

You benefit from hands-on lessons from more than 50 companies

When you've assimilated the methodology you can generate your own, slim, customized in-house version. We suggest the best way to do that too. You'll be able to revise the way you develop products with little or no external help. Price and how to order is at the end.

How to order “The product development process - an outline blueprint”

Send your cheque (sorry no credit cards), payable to Dr C B Mynott, with your order to:

Dept WP
36 Main Road
Crick
Northampton
NN6 7TX
UK

The product development process - an outline blueprint: UK£120 / US$195 per copy including mail and packing.

All enquiries to Dr C B Mynott at Westfield Publishing - WP@Mynott.com

			Other publications on more detailed topics
			When you run the product development process, it's like planning a journey. First of all, you plan your route from a map (or maybe you don't; some product developers just drive in the least congested direction - unplanned opportunism, ending up where they regret). So don't make the mistake of wading straight into most of these books without first having devised your route. That could sometimes be akin to minutely examining the road surface outside your house rather than planning your route. Possibly interesting but not the best use of your time and could be misleading. You may find it useful to have more explanation first to understand which bits of detail you need to study.
			The following volumes form a concise library you can refer to for detail explanation of particular operating aspects of the process. You can dip into the particular part of the work referred to in Lean Product Development (above) where you need detail guidance on the how-to that perhaps you have not tried to operate before.

			David Allen, Developing Successful New Products, FT/Pitman UK ISBN 0-273-60150-4 (Out of print but now available from WP@Mynott.com, price £60/$100)
			A definitive handbook on product planning. David has spent his life doing it - an excellent account of experience and lessons learned.
			Belbin, Management teams - why they succeed or fail, Heinemann, ISBN 434-901260-1
			A descriptions of why and how teams work and the mix of personalities that achieves the best performance.
			John Bicheno, The lean toolbox, Picsie Books, ISBN 0-9513-829-9-3
			The reference guide to the tools and techniques of lean operation and lean enterprise. Excellent read-across to how you organise product development - an essential reference.

			Cranfield University UK, CIM Department, Using concurrent engineering for better product development, 1999 ISBN 1-87131-575-1 (phone 01234 754 108) (Also available from WP@Mynott.com, price £60/$100)
			A workbook developed by installing the techniques at a number of companies. You resolve problems with full team working across all functions. Any company can use it to install the processes effectively, using the lessons learned by others who faced and overcame the problems.
			Cusumano and Nobeoka, Thinking beyond lean, The Free Press, 1998 ISBN 0-684-84918-6
			How the largest automobile manufacturers are running their product development process for multiple projects; comparison of a number of systems with the Toyota system. Some interesting lessons that non-auto companies could adopt.
			Don Clausing, Total quality development, ASME Press ISBN 0-7918-0035-0
			A manual on many of the detail aspects of the process of developing products. (Don Clausing is Professor at MIT.) Especially useful on operating QFD, investigating customers and optimising costs and concepts.

			Colin Mynott, Lean Product Development, Westfield Publishing (see above) ISBN 0-9538779-0-6 (Order from Fax: +44 (0)1788 822 040 or WP@Mynott.com)
			A manual that sets out exactly what you do to plan your product development programme then put it into action. A step by step management guide to the total process.
			Pahl and Beitz, Engineering Design, Springer-Verlag, ISBN 3-540-50442-7
			A manual that is especially good on design principles and developing the engineering detail of products.
			Reinertsen, Managing the design factory, 1997 ISBN 0-684-83991-1
			How you apply vital tools to the development process, including creating a economic models, why facility queues occur and how you deal with them, product architecture, information from failures, risk, metrics and more.

			Rother and Shook, Learning to see, Lean Enterprise Institute, 1999 ISBN 0-9667843-0-8
			A workbook on how you analyse “value streams" to help you analyse where you waste effort, on your way to implementing the Toyota production system. Can be applied to any process, whether production or administrative.
			Shigeo Shingo, Non Stock Production, 1988 ISBN 0-915299-30-5
			A treatise on how you put in place what has come to be known as the Toyota Production System; the general bent to logical thinking and problem solving is of particular interest to product developers.
			Smith and Reinertsen, Developing products in half the time, 1991 ISBN 0-442-00243-2
			Some key management techniques that improve project profit, especially how you model projects to understand what most influences their success.

			Womack and Jones, Lean Thinking, 1996 ISBN 0-684-81035-2
			A description of how companies who have applied the Toyota production system and related good practice have radically cut their costs and gained market share.
			Womack, Jones and Roos, The Machine that Changed the World, 1989 ISBN 0-89256-350-8
			The results of a five-year world-wide programme based at MIT comparing the operating practices of car makers, showing how the Toyota production system leads the way in commercial success.

			Dr C B Mynott, Managing Director, TICS Limited