I wrote a piece a little more than five years ago about a variety reduction program (VRP), an amazing but little-known product-design optimization tool. At the time I referred to VRP as an idea whose “time had not yet come.” Last week, as I gave a short presentation on VRP, I realized that five years later its time apparently still has not come. In the interest of creating more interest around this significant technique, the following column expands on my epistle from 2011 and provides a couple of tangible examples of that significance from my own experience.

 …