DEFINITIONS

Lean Systems Engineering defined

Lean Systems Engineering is the application of lean six sigma principles, practices and tools to systems engineering in order to enhance the delivery of value to the system's stakeholders.

System Engineering

"Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary approach and means to enable the realization of successful systems. It focuses on defining customer needs and required functionality early in the development cycle, documenting the derived requirements, and then proceeding with design synthesis and systems validation while considering all related issues (the complete problem). Systems Engineering considers both the business and the technical aspects of all stakeholders with the goal of providing a quality product the meets the user needs."

INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook , v.3, INCOSE-TP-2003-002-03, June 2006, p 1.5

Lean Thinking

"Lean thinking is the dynamic, knowledge-driven, and customer-focused process through which all people in a defined enterprise continuously eliminate waste with the goal of creating value."

Lean Enterprise Value , Murman, E.M. et al, Palgrave, 2002

Six Sigma

"Six Sigma is a system of practices originally developed by Motorola to systematically improve processes by elimination of defects."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma , accessed February 4, 2007

Footnote: defects to be eliminated include product defects, process defects such as excessive variability and poor predictability of outcomes, and relationships defects such as poor coordination, poor communication, and the lack of consensus.

Stakeholder

"Any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievements of the organization's objective."

Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Perspective , R.E. Freeman, Pittman 1984

Value
"Value is a measure of worth of a specific product or service by a customer, and potentially other stakeholders and is a function of (1) the product's usefulness in satisfying a customer need, (2) the relative importance of the need being satisfied, (3) the availability of the product relative to when it is needed, and (4) the cost of ownership to the customer."

Slack, R. "The Application of Lean Principles to the Military Aerospace Product Development Process." MIT SM Thesis, Dec 1998.

Waste

"The work element that adds no value to the product or service in the eyes of the customer. Waste only adds cost and time."

Lean Thinking , Womack, J.P. and Jones, D.T., Simon and Schuster, 1996

• Unnecessary rework (in contrast to justified iterations)
• Waiting by tasks on outputs of other tasks
• Inefficient transmittal of information