Title: Lean Product Development Process with Design Verification Stages in the Value Stream of Automotive Industry
Abstract: In the automotive industry, lean projects and innovation creation come to life by being updated under the control of systematic interdisciplinary process flows. The lean product development process that changes the shell, defined under the light of the variables created by the competitive conditions, is today measured by the value flow efficiency and the global market spread of the final product. Consequently, the lean product development approach, which aims to identify and purify all the wastes that do none value or create value to the system or cause burdens in the new product development process, is shaped by step-by-step approvals in the flow. In the main automotive industry company practices within the scope of the research (3 national, 3 international), the beginning of the concept of lean in design is to define and optimize the steps in the product development process under the value stream map. Therefore, the product function for which the customer has paid for, the function of the new product or the physical structure used to meet the needs in question, the comfort, life, experience, innovations of the scope that constitute the new product concept are planned and verified and implemented in the simplified automotive design stages at the beginning of the lean product development process. In this research, initial automotive design objectives and stages are at the focal point of the innovation and added value creation brought by the concept of "lean" approach. The research is modelled on the determination of steps that do not create added value together with the points where the flow circuits' or stems, the process is devalued, the interdisciplinary holistic studies intensify, the information and delay begin and end in the sequential and simultaneous design validation step transition stages, which are examined under the lean approach. As a visual and virtual tool that enables the elaboration of nominal values such as the total duration of the design verification stages and the influence of interdisciplinary stakeholders or the test level of the product design with the new product added, it reveals the value flow or losses. Hence research; from innovation creation and new product design steps, which constitute the initial stages of the lean product development process, to design verification analysis, the efficiency of the automotive company processes within the scope of the research has been measured by comparing using lean automotive design techniques, methods and concepts.