Teaching Concepts Of Lean Manufacturing Through A Hands On Laboratory Course

The use of lean manufacturing principles has grown significantly in recent years. Although these principles make use of many Industrial Engineering methods, there is still limited coverage of lean manufacturing in many Industrial Engineering programs. This may be due to reluctance to add additional courses to existing degree requirements, or a difficulty in bringing together lean concepts that are often scattered among existing courses in the curriculum. To integrate lean principles into the Industrial and Systems Engineering curriculum at Ohio University, a laboratory course was developed. The course integrated methods taught in other ISE courses and demonstrated how these methods related the concept of a lean system. The laboratory approach was taken to enable students to gain hands-on experience in lean principles. The laboratory course met one day a week, which also made fitting the course into their schedules easier for the students. This paper provides an overview of the activities that were conducted in the laboratory sessions to demonstrate lean principles. The paper also discusses the supporting materials, including introductory lectures and out-of-class work. Observations from the instructor of the course and the students participating in it are also included.