Thinking Beyond Lean

Book excerpt: Cusumano and Nobeoka the bestselling coauthors of MICROSOFT SECRETS, reveal how Toyota and other leading automobile makers achieve remarkable savings and growth by using shared technology and organisational capabilities across multiple projects. THINKING BEYOND LEAN explains how to manage product development more strategically and efficiently, focusing on a concept the authors call "multi-project management". In contrast, most books on product development deal with how to manage products one at a time. The basic idea of multi-product management is to create new products that share key components but to utilise separate development teams that ensure each product will differ enough to attract different customers. Taking up where THE MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD left off, THINKING BEYOND LEAN will change the way leaders do business now and in the future.