Sheila Cameron

Lean product engineering in the South African automotive industry

Purpose – The puropse of this paper is to explore the extent to which principles of lean product development are applied to product design and engineering at automotive companies in South Africa (SA). Survey, interview and observational data form the basis for an adaptation of Toyota’s lean product development system (LPDS) (Morgan and Liker, 2006) to the South African automotive product engineering context. Design/methodology/approach – All seven automotive manufacturers then operating in SA (including Toyota) were investigated, together with sample of those suppliers carrying out product engineering and/or design locally. A questionnaire based on the LPDS, and follow-up interviews were used to ascertain the extent to which lean principles informed product engineering, and identify areas where there was scope for improvement. Findings – The survey established that while SA automotive companies have a strong manufacturing focus there is very limited local product design and development (PD&D), as this ten...