Abstract
The research is based on a literature review focused on early supplier involvement in new product development processes while working towards Lean production, especially for the automotive industry, where all actors must be fast and accurate. For practitioners, early supplier involvement is a topic that deserves serious attention since it impacts on decentralisation, promoting gains in quality, quantity, and execution time, as well as cost reduction and/or the acquisition of technical knowledge in developing products and production processes. The authors first introduce the key concepts, issues, and theoretical foundations concerning early supplier involvement challenges and new product development within organisations that affect their core processes and outsourcing strategies when seeking collaboration to develop more sophisticated technologies that a new product requires. The authors critically explore these issues, especially concerning earlier supplier involvement and its connection to the Lean philosophy, pursuing process tunning, considering production quantity, quality, and time, as well as avoiding penalising interruption within the automotive industry. The study provides the first critical review of potential challenges for a successful early supply involvement and, consequently, a successful new product development process decentralisation and the acquisition of technical knowledge in developing products and production processes needed to satisfy customers.