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Scania Technical Centre: A Pioneering
Lean Product Development Champion
Scania is known worldwide for its modularized heavy truck and bus line,
which allows the company to deliver special-purpose vehicles with high
degrees of customization from a limited number of main components.
I rst learned about Scania’s modular designs in 1997 from H. omas
Johnson, author of Prot beyond Measure. Dr. Johnson was a professor in
my MBA program. It was the rst presentation I saw about Lean inking
applied to product development, although Dr. Johnson didn’t use those
words at the time.
Scania has been experimenting with Lean ideas since 1990, ...