An international research study, “Efficient Introduction of Lean in Product Development,” is being conducted. The study is part of a collaboration between the Lean Advancement Initiative (LAI) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Institute for Manufacturing and Operations Research (IFU) of the Technical University of Braunschweig.

From the website:

The goal of the survey is to investigate how lean principles can be implemented in product development systems to maximize the probability of implementation success and develop a lean product innovation process.

Each person participating in the study by 15 March will receive a written report by July 2009 outlining the results and giving insights derived from analysis of the survey data on how to implement lean product development most efficiently.

Completing the online survey will require 20 to 30 minutes. We would appreciate if you could participate in the study or help to distribute this information to other persons in your company working in the field of product development.

Of course, all the information collected in the survey is treated as highly confidential and individual participants will not be identified.

Take the survey here.