Lean School: a learning factory for training lean manufacturing in a physical simulation environment

Abstract

This paper introduces the Lean School, a Learning Factory, along with a “game” of physical simulation that is developed in it. All this is focused on teaching-learning, both of students and professionals, of the potential advantages offered by the implementation of the Lean Production in the organizations. The participants gain a practical experience, based on experimental learning, which gives them a better understanding of the principles and tools of Lean philosophy. This physical environment is not limited to theoretical teaching, but goes beyond and implements a production system near a real one. It starts from a configuration of a production plant with an unbalanced system and throughout the different iterations, called productions, introduces and implement the Lean principles, which makes its participants acquire not only knowledge but also the skills needed to implement an efficient production in their organizations. All the constituent elements of the system will be described briefly: the product, the variations thereof, the initial design with its layout, as well as the subsequent productions, and the results of learning of each one.