Human Factors Engineering as a supportive tool for Lean Product Development

Paper in proceeding, 2014

Lean Product Development (LPD) is a systematic approach used by enterprises to create streamlined processes and value-added activities. One of the main building blocks in LPD is to define and identify customer value and then deliver that value to the customer. Despite that, we have perceived a number of weaknesses in how LPD works with customer needs and requirements. Especially with respect to how best actively and continuously involve the customers/users in the development process. The area of Human Factors Engineering (HFE) concerns ways of designing with regards to human characteristics, capacities and limitations. In the work it is central to elicit user needs and mediate them into the product development processes, as well as letting the user actively be involved in the process. Therefore, in this paper we argue that HFE can make substantial contribution to the area of LPD.