Lean Visual Planning and Product Development Complexity: Facilitating Information Processing Capability

Paper in proceeding, 2011

Increasing complexity of products makes product development hard to manage and increases lead-time, which puts great demands on the information processing capability in organizations. This calls for methods that could facilitate this capability in a good way. Lean product development literature points towards the Visual planning method as a good way of managing information. However, studies that relate Visual planning methods to information processing capability seems to be lacking. This case study investigates how Visual planning can help managing complexity through increasing the information processing capability of an product development organization. Results show that Visual planning increases the extent and timeliness of information shared and is also an enabler for fast decision-making in the organization. The conclusion from this paper is that Visual planning constitutes a method that is useful for product development teams handling considerable complexity in coordination of their tasks.