The Lean Product Design and Development Journey

Dr. Pessoa graduated from the Brazilian Air Force Academy as a military pilot, received his Master of Science in Applied Computing from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brazil (1998), and his Doctor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA), Brazil (2006). He was also a postdoctoral fellow in Mechanical and Systems Engineering at MIT, USA (2007-2008). In the Brazilian Air Force, he worked on systems development, systems acquisition, and development process improvement. Outside the Air Force, he worked on applying lean concepts and improving product development processes (PDPs) in companies such as Whirlpool, Mectron, and Ford. Currently, he is a lean product development and project management consultant and teaches the Lean Product Development course at the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Brazil. Dr. Trabasso graduated as a mechanical engineer from the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (1982). He received his Master of Science in Engineering and Aerospace Technology from the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (1985) and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Loughborough University, England (1991). He has held various professorial positions at the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA) since 1984. He is one of the founders of the Competence Center for Manufacturing at ITA (CCM/ITA), a laboratory that runs strategic projects with industrial partners such as Embraer, Siemens, Fiat, Rexam and Petrobras. Currently, he is full professor at ITA, focusing his research on integrated product development (IPD), lean IPD, industrial automation and robotics.