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Work in Progress - An Improved Teaching Strategy for Lean Manufacturing Education Ning Fang 1, Randy Cook 2, and Karina Hauser 3 Abstract – This paper reports our continuous efforts in developing and implementing an improved teaching strategy to enhance lean manufacturing education. As an interdisciplinary engineering and business instructorteam, we have jointly taught a Lean course twice. Based on our experience in the first course, we made five improvements in the second course, which include 1) careful redesign of the course syllabus to be more student friendly, 2) enhancements to the Lean Lego Simulation focusing more on student learning, 3) starting the studentcompany team projects earlier to allow more learning through more meaningful projects, 4) introducing the use of a Classroom Response System to assess learning instantaneously in the classroom, and 5) using computer simulation to clearly show the benefits of lean principles in operational performance. This paper provides details for each of the five improvements and how they enhanced student learning. Enrollment in the second course grew nearly 300% and represents six departments from engineering, technology, and business. Course evaluation shows that the improved teaching strategy has generated a positive impact on student learning. Index Terms – Lean manufacturing, Lean simulation, Teaching strategy, Student-company team projects. INTRODUCTION Lean manufacturing (LM) utilizes significantly fewer resources to produce a larger variety of products at higher levels of product quality and service [1, 2]. Over the last 15 years, LM has gained wide application in many industries such as automotive, aerospace, defense, communication and medical equipment-manufacturing industries. The traditional method of teaching LM in universities is classroom lectures, which present a significant challenge for students to develop a first-hand experience and a better understanding on the application of LM principles and tools. In addition, given the limited and definite lecture time, how to select the most fundamental and essential LM concepts and theories to teach has long been an important issue. As a part of a National Science Foundation-funded educational project, we developed a LM course curriculum at our university and have taught the course twice. In last year’s ASEE/IEEE Frontier in Education Conference, we reported our experience in teaching the first Lean course [3]. Following
continuous improvement principles, and based on our experience in and lessons learned from the first course, we developed and implemented an improved teaching strategy in the second course that we taught in the Spring 2007 semester. After introducing the current status of the project and the expected project outcomes, this paper describes the five improvements that comprise our improved teaching strategy. Course evaluation was also conducted to determine if the improved teaching strategy helped enhance student learning. CURRENT PROJECT STATUS Due to the success of our first course, student enrollment in our second course grew nearly 300% to 47 students representing six departments across the campus from engineering, technology, and business. Theses six departments are Mechanical Engineering, Instructional Technology, Business Administration, Operations Management, International Business, and Human Resource Management. As an interdisciplinary engineering and business instructor-team, we are jointly teaching the second course and are focusing on continuous improvement of teaching and learning. EXPECTED PROJECT OUTCOMES The expected outcomes of the project include: • well-educated and well-trained workforce needed for the manufacturing job marketplace of the 21st century • effective interdisciplinary collaboration between engineering and business faculty to enhance student technical and professional skills and business knowledge IMPROVED TEACHING STRATEGY I. Redesign of Course Syllabus Our primary focus in redesigning the course was to incorporate more experiential learning. In addition, we redesigned the course syllabus 1) to prepare students earlier for their industrial projects and 2) to facilitate the implementation of Lean Lego Simulation. A new textbook [1] was adopted. The course material was reordered to match the sequence in the book, expect for one three-chapter sequence that involved the development of people. Specific learning topics included value and team building, value steam mapping, waste reduction, stability and standardization, problem-solving, quick changeover, lean design, etc.
1
Ning Fang, College of Engineering, Utah State University,
[email protected] Randy Cook, College of Business, Utah State University,
[email protected] 3 Karina Hauser, College of Business, Utah State University,
[email protected] 2
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Session T3C The format of the class lectures was also changed by including more interactive in-class discussions and learningby-doing activities, such as discussions on Lean videos (such as McDonalds, Hotel Monoco, Gortrac and Honda that the students watched), real-world problems and case studies, and students’ personnel experiences. II. Enhanced Lean Lego Simulation (LLS) The purpose is to show students, through hands-on Lego experiences, various benefits from lean production, so students have a better understanding of and direct personal experience with Lean [3]. The students were asked to assemble a Lego car with 45 components. Three phases were run at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester, respectively. In Phase I, we had the students set up a line flow with a three-piece batch flow. The simulation was run twice, so students could become proficient with the assembly process. In Phase II, the students had learned more of the fundamentals of lean. We encouraged them to set up a lean one-piece flow, with a cellular layout, balancing line workers with material handlers. With these simple changes, the teams cut their throughput time in half. The student teams also experienced significant human benefits. The workplace was calmer, more orderly and communication was clear and crisp. The pace of work was actually much less frantic, as well. In Phase III, the students aggressively pursued all avenues of lean systems such as flexible work flow, standardized work, and ergonomics. III. Student-Company Team Projects We started student-company team projects earlier 1) to provide more time for students to take on more complex industrial projects with local companies, and 2) to enable more careful organization of project teams by ensuring a mix of majors and a mix of student personality types as well. The companies provided a variety of their on-going or future projects for the students to work on. Project examples include the study and creation of a complete system of wooden parts stores for a furniture manufacturer, the reduction of machine set-up time for a food processor, and the design and documentation of standardized work in a local warehouse. IV. Classroom Response Systems The Classroom Response System, also called “I-clickers,” is an innovative classroom teaching technology that allows students to anonymously respond to multiple-choice questions and gives the instructor immediate feedback and evaluation on student learning. We adopted this technique to motivate students to read and study before the class discussions. The inclass quizzes also served as an opportunity to review the reading in preparation for the discussions and exercises. V. Computer Simulation To show the benefits of lean principles in operational performance, we developed a computer simulation using ARENA, a discrete event simulation modeling and analysis software. The simulation is the assembly of a garden rake, which consists of three processes: 1) turn a wooden handle on
lathe (three minutes), 2) forge the rake (three minutes), and 3) nail the rake to a handle (two minutes). The first two processes run parallel. The work-in-process cost for the wooden handle was set $5 and the forged rake was set at $15, respectively. The daily production goal was set at 50 rakes. For the batch production the buffer size after the first two processes was 50 each. A random error occurred every 10 handles for process 1 and every 15 rakes for process 2. Counters in the simulation model recorded the quantity and cost of work-in-process for both processes. After running computer simulation, students were encouraged to discuss questions such as: How long does it take before quality problems are discovered? How much is work-in-process at that time point? How many handles/rakes have to be reworked? How many rakes can be assembled? With computer simulation and the discussion of these questions, students were able to see the difference between batch production and one-piece flow. COURSE EVALUATION We designed a comprehensive questionnaire with open-ended questions to survey students’ attitudes and experience with our course. Of the 44 students surveyed, 42 students (96%) thought the course was useful for their professional career development and would recommend it to other students; 40 students (91%) rated the overall experience with LLS as positive or very positive; 42 students (96%) rated the design of LLS as positive or very positive. In students’ written comments on how LLS helped improve their learning, the words most frequently used by the students include “see the results,” “hands on,” “group interactions,” and “prove lean does work.” Students also provided several valuable suggestions to further improve teaching and learning. CONCLUDING REMARKS Our improved teaching strategy that includes five improvements is proven effective in preparing students to better understand and practice lean manufacturing. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This paper is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0511421. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. REFERENCES [1]
Liker, J. K., and Meier, D., The Toyota Way Fieldbook, McGraw-Hill, New York, New York, 2006.
[2]
Rother, M., and Shook, J., Learning to See, The Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, Massachusetts, 2003.
[3]
Fang, N., Cook, R., and Hauser, K., “Work in Progress – An Innovative Interdisciplinary Lean Manufacturing Course,” Proceedings of the 36th ASEE/IEEE Frontier In Education Conference, San Diego, CA, October 28-31, 2006.
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