EGR 590 606 Sustainable Lean Manufacturing

3 Credit Hours

Purpose of Course: The course will cover generic and specific lean manufacturing concepts and tools focused on sustainability. All these basic concepts will be employed to discuss industry strategy and global competitiveness. People responsible for continuously improving operational performance must develop systems that are fast, flexible, focused and friendly for their companies, customers and production associates. The course will provide the student with an introduction to lean manufacturing describing the background behind its development and how evaluations and assessments of production systems are performed. Lean manufacturing tools and techniques will be described and in some cases demonstrated in simulation exercises. Issues relating to employee involvement, improvement teams, training and culture will be presented. Planning for lean process implementation and the necessity of sustain improvements will be discussed. Finally, sustainability concept will be discussed and integrated with Lean Manufacturing. Conduct of Course: This class will be conducted on-line only. Grading will be based upon performance on a book report, homework, midterm, and a final exam. Students can add to their grade by completing a project as a part of the course.

Prerequisite

Senior or graduate standing in industrial engineering or a related discipline and consent of instructor. The course is open to graduate students, advanced undergraduates and practicing engineers who wish to learn more about lean principles and practice. No prior background in lean production will be assumed.

Course Objectives

1. You will learn a brief history of manufacturing approaches employed and the background and philosophy of lean production. You will also learn the concept of waste and that the quest for truly lean production is a journey and not a destination.
2. The need for strategy, alignment with other corporate or plant objectives, and preparation for lean manufacturing will be presented.
3. You will learn some evaluation techniques that one can use in preparation for and use in lean manufacturing activities.
4. You will learn a set of approaches used in implementing lean manufacturing in production operations. While these tools are often useful, they are not an end on themselves and they are not necessarily the essence of lean manufacturing either.
5. Concepts as workplace organization, pull production, cellular arrangement and layout improvement, visual management, quick change, mistake reduction, employee involvement, need for employee creativity and motivation for lean implementation will be discussed and examples will be given.
6. Methods for promoting success in implementing lean transformations will be discussed.
7. The importance of sustainability in this competitive world and how Lean manufacturing is aligned with it.

Course Requirements

Homework:
Homework dealing with Supply chain, 5S/s, SMED, TPM, etc will be required.

Book:
There will be a book report. The book will be selected by the student and approve by the professor.

Examinations:
There will be one mid-term during the course and a final exam.

Textbook

As textbooks for the course students may wish to choose to use one or both of the following two books:

The Toyota Way Fieldbook, Jeffrey Liker and David Meier, McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Lean Production Simplified, Pascal Dennis, Productivity Press, 2007.

A book report will be assigned. Books must be drawn from a book list distributed at the beginning of the course. An application project may be elected for extra credit.

Other References:

Lean Thinking, James Womack and Daniel Jones, Free Press, Revised Edition, 2003.

The Machine That Changed The World, James Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos, Rawson Associates, 1990.

The Toyota Way, Jeffrey Liker, McGraw-Hill, 2004.

Value Stream Management, Don Topping, Tom Luyster, and Tom Shuker, Productivity Press, 2002.