A ‘Nordic Lean’ approach for Supplier involvement in Product Development - A literature review

Although supplier involvement as a topic has been extensively dealt with both within and outside IMP studies, there appears to be no coherent view on the “how” of supplier involvement to date. Furthermore, the paucity of such studies is an impediment in presenting concise and actionable advice to managers on this theme. To create a discussion of supplier involvement, we reviewed relevant literature on supplier involvement in IMP studies as well as more general product development literature involving suppliers, combining lean thinking. In line with recent interest in IMP studies using a ‘tool’ lens as defined within the Strategy-as-Practice literature, we focus the literature review by looking at prescribed or observed practices for supplier involvement. Based on the literature review of 49 articles, we suggest four themes to outline supplier involvement in product development using a ‘Nordic Lean’ approach: 1) Practices for involving suppliers in knowledge value stream, 2) Practices for determining the extent of involvement, 3) Practices for deciding when to involve the suppliers, 4) Practices for selecting supplier relationships.