Book Review: Lean for Systems Engineering: With Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering

Title: Lean for Systems Engineering with Lean Enablers for Systems Engineering

By Bohdan W. Oppenheim; October; Hardback; 300 pages

This desk reference text was written by Bo Oppenheim, a member of the INCOSE Lean Systems Engineering (SE) Working Group (WG). The book was given the INCOSE 2010 Product of the Year Award.

One of the main objectives of the book was to capture Lean Thinking (in the context of Systems Engineering) as a set of Lean Principles including Customer-Defined Value, Value Stream Mapping, Continuous Value Flow, and Customer Pull of Value. 

The INCOSE Lean SE WG defines Lean Systems Engineering as, “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”.

In short, Lean Systems Engineering is the area of synergy of Lean and Systems Engineering. The Lean SE WG considers Lean Enablers to be, “A checklist of Do’s and Don’ts of SE for industry”.

The author does not mean for information in the text to become a mandatory practice. Rather, it should be read and used as a checklist of good practices in enterprises, programs, and at every level of systems engineering work.

Different versions of the book can be purchased from Wiley or Amazon