Toyota Motor Corporation is an industry leader in product development lead time while using fewer engineers than its U.S. competitors. It has also shown remarkable consistency in market share growth and profit per vehicle, which led to cash reserves of $21 billion, exceeding those of the “Big Three” automakers combined.1 The Toyota Production System (TPS), dubbed “lean manufacturing,” has been critical in these accomplishments,2 but we believe that Toyota’s product design and development system is also an important contributor.3