I
M P A C T
Emerging Work from CTPID
Impact
Fall 2002: Back Matter
"Building
Lean Enterprise, One Lego at a Time"
MIT's
Interactive Workshop Trains Executives in Lean Production
By Patricia Proven
Big-industry success in a global
market means creating value for stakeholders while eliminating waste,
Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI) researchers say. It also requires efficient
use of resources and an enhanced flow of information.
Managers from the US Army and
Navy, Boeing, Rolls Royce, and other enterprises took these lessons --
of lean production -- from LAI's first Executive Short Course in June.
Twenty-four managers from government, engineering, and industry arrived
at the University Park Hotel in Cambridge ready for a three-day workshop
of lectures and an interactive simulation called "The Game."
Participants took the roles
of manufacturers, suppliers, and developers in aerospace production. Their
mission: to build Lego airplanes through timed, rules-based rounds of
play. The course taught how lean processes, tested in the aerospace enterprise,
can efficiently yield high-quality products and improve working relationships
in any setting.
"The game provided a real-time
example of the benefits that can be achieved by putting the lean elements
in place," said participant Deborah True, quality director of Rolls
Royce.
Workshop lessons were based
on the new book Lean Enterprise Value: Insights from MIT's Lean Aerospace
Initiative (2002). "The concepts of improvement can be applied to
any industry and any setting," said Policy and External Environment
researcher Eric Rebentisch, who co-wrote the book with a dozen others.
Leaders from many industries,
they said, might benefit in learning how to link people across varied
levels of enterprise, to provide value to customers, and to eliminate
waste.
"You really need to get
a holistic view," said Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Senior Lecturer Dr. Joyce Warmkessel, a LEV co-author who organized the
workshop. "One of the big wastes you find in production and development
is the communication breakdown between departments."
The Game
Each group initially confronted
problems in building the Lego airplanes. Manufacturers had so much work
that they were holding up other groups, Warmkessel said. Suppliers meanwhile
contended with parts shortages and developers dealt with design flaws.
The groups eventually cooperated
to redistribute tasks, swap materials, and solve development problems.
"Even when you're efficient in your own group, the communication
between groups has to be there," Warmkessel said.
Trainees said the workshop
inspired ideas on how to integrate the various levels of enterprise --
from program management and engineering to customer relations - in their
own businesses.
True said the model can improve
her company's new quality system, which is based on a nine-process business
model. "Insuring that we have a clear understanding of how we operate
within these processes with respect to other organizations," she
said, "will insure that we eliminate gaps that can cause issues for
the customer, as well as eliminate those things are a duplication of effort."
LAI, begun in 1993, is entering
its fourth phase led by co-directors Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor
Dr. Deborah Nightingale, Howard W. Johnson School of Management professor
Thomas Allen, and an industry co-director to be appointed. The consortium,
through its partnership among industry, government, labor, and academia,
has devoted extended research, practice, and teaching to changing way
the US aerospace industry operates within a global-knowledge driven economy.
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