Lean Application: The Design Process and Effectiveness

Abstract

Taiwan’s trade mainly depended on exports, and the design of export products would affect the demand for clients to place orders. As the size of an enterprise and the number of the product categories it produced changed, the size of its design department was also affected. This study adopted the viewpoint of Toyota Production System (TPS) to re-explore the overall design process of the enterprise and plan a new design process. It aimed at proposing a framework with sound design efficiency. The results showed that after adopting TPS, the number of design cases undertaken by the design department increased, the time required to complete a case decreased, and the workload of each designer tended to be average. These results represented that the efficiency of the designers’ execution of the design cases increased. Another finding of this study was that the working pressure of the designers reduced. In conclusion, TPS brought considerable benefits to the company.