Integrated problem solving

The second practice automotive companies use to achieve conceptual integrity is to use integrated problem solving to assure excellent technical information flow. As we noted earlier, Clark and Fujimoto’s research showed that conceptual integrity is a reflection of the integrity of the upstream and downstream technical information flow in the product development process. Product development is a system of interconnected problem-solving cycles, and frequent problem-solving cycles that effectively span upstream and downstream engineers are common practice in automotive companies with high product integrity. —Chapter 6, Lean software development (book)