ENHANCING PRODUCT INNOVATION THROUGH A CUSTOMER-CENTERED, LEAN FRAMEWORK

For companies to survive and thrive in today's market, a key strategy is to leverage innovation capability through an effective process of converting unmet customer needs into successful products, creating value for customers, the company and other stakeholders. This work demonstrates how Lean becomes a pre-competitive factor in product innovation through customer value focus. The goal is to determine the applicability of user-centered methodologies in generating input that ultimately leads to differentiated products. An office chair case study implies that although user-focus is necessary, this will not inevitably lead to novel products, since users are engrossed with past and present.