Extreme close-up photograph of a whiteboard surface with faint dry-erase marker smudges in blue and black, showing the textured matte finish of the board under soft overhead light.

About

The Chalmers Electronic Lean Research Team and the research projects driving digital visual planning forward.

The Chalmers Electronic Lean Research Team brings together academic rigor and real-world industrial experience to explore how digital tools can transform lean practices. Based at Chalmers University of Technology, the group focuses on visual management, digital kanban systems, and collaborative planning methods that make complex workflows visible and actionable. By studying how teams in manufacturing, automotive, and software development coordinate their efforts, the researchers develop evidence-based approaches to improve efficiency and transparency. Their work bridges the gap between traditional lean principles and modern digital environments, helping organizations move beyond static whiteboards toward dynamic, connected planning systems that support continuous improvement and cross-functional collaboration.

Digital visual planning represents a significant evolution in how teams manage their daily work and long-term projects. The research performed by this group examines how electronic kanban boards, visual dashboards, and real-time status tracking can replace outdated manual methods while preserving the core lean philosophy of waste reduction and flow efficiency. The team investigates how these tools affect team communication, decision-making, and problem-solving in complex, knowledge-intensive environments. Their findings help organizations understand which visual elements truly drive progress and which features risk becoming distractions, contributing practical guidance for implementing digital planning systems that actually improve outcomes.

Collaboration with industry partners such as Volvo, Scania, and Autoliv ensures that the research remains grounded in real manufacturing and software development challenges. These partnerships allow the team to test prototypes and evaluate methods in authentic production environments, from automotive assembly lines to enterprise software teams. The research projects are often financed through programs like Vinnova's FFI, which supports coordinated efforts between academia and industry. This close connection to practitioners means that findings are immediately relevant and actionable, helping companies adopt visual management techniques that reduce lead times, improve quality, and enhance team autonomy without requiring expensive or disruptive overhauls of their existing systems.

Beyond the technical aspects of digital kanban and visual planning tools, the team explores the human and organizational factors that determine success. They study how teams adopt new visual practices, what makes daily stand-up meetings and planning sessions more effective, and how information radiators can be designed to support genuine collaboration rather than mere reporting. The research also addresses the challenges of scaling visual management across large enterprises and connecting multiple teams through shared digital workspaces. By combining insights from lean production, software engineering, and cognitive science, the group provides a holistic understanding of how visualization can make complex work more transparent, manageable, and continuously improving.

Chalmers Electronic Lean Research Team

The Chalmers Electronic/Enterprise Lean Research Team — Celean — is a research group at Chalmers University of Technology focused on the efficient use of processes, tools, and methods in product and production development. The team investigates how digital technologies can enhance lean practices, visual management, and knowledge reuse in complex industrial environments.

Project Visit is the umbrella initiative through which Celean collaborates with industry partners to bring visual project management software and digital planning tools into real-world practice.

Vis-IT

Visualization and IT in Product and Production Development

Concluded September 2015 · Financed by the Vinnova FFI program

The Vis-IT project explored how visualization and information technology could improve product and production development processes. Coordinated by Volvo, the project brought together a consortium of Swedish industrial partners to bridge the gap between complex IT applications and lean tools.

Industry partners included AB Volvo, Autoliv, Toyota Material Handling, Repos, Dentsply, Kongsberg Automotive, Scania, and Netsmart.

A digital pulse board was installed at Dentsply in November 2012 as part of the project's pilot implementations. The Vis-IT Master Thesis was nominated to Lilla Polhemspriset.

Digilean

Digilean (2015-04509)

Ongoing research project

The Digilean project aims to create a digitized process demonstrator software that connects Fujimoto's chain of procedures — problem identification, problem solving, and standardized stable solutions — to create knowledge flow forward and traceability backward in an integrated production and development environment. The goal is to support global enterprises through digitized Lean methodology.