Over the last years, Lean has been introduced to manufacturing and service environments all over the world. Lean is based on the Toyota Production System which is known for its successful strategy on continuous improvement. The Lean philosophy, which comes down to eliminating waste (in the value chain) with the goal of creating value (for the customer), is becoming more and more popular in different domains, such as manufacturing, administration, healthcare, IT, etc. Due to its current importance and wide relevance, the need arises for teaching this approach (and its insights) to students and employees involved in this field of work. This is where Lean games can be used for, the training and education of employees in the field of Lean. Lean games provide a context which allows participants to imagine and understand how the Lean philosophy can be useful and how it can work; it provides a hands-on approach. The participant performs tasks, looks at processes and tries to improve them at every iteration of the game to increase his productivity and knowledge. Although the complete scope of Lean cannot be grasped exclusively through games, they enable the participants to experience the Lean philosophy and to foster the discussion, participation and decision making, which are fundamental requirements to successfully implement Lean thinking in a company. These games illustrate the impact of some practices, such as uncertainty on productivity and project duration, push and pull approaches to production, multitasking, cycle time etc.
2. Problem statement
Despite the growing popularity of Lean (Womack & Jones, 2003), there are still not many books or journals about the best practices on the use of Lean games for certain Lean implementations. Academic research on Lean games has been focused mainly on individual games proposed by the author himself with little room for comparison and shortcomings. This provides a multitude of Lean games that focus on different aspects in different sectors. However a lot of these games lack a thorough analysis on its implementation, they haven’t been tested and compared to different games. An extensive overview and comparison of these Lean games is lacking. To fill this gap, this thesis aims to provide a thorough analysis of the Lean games available. The goal is to identify the best practice Lean games for different purposes, ranging from the games used in a manufacturing environment to those used in service industries such as healthcare. These are then classified according to their learning objectives, and their area of application. This analysis exposes the characteristics of each game with their aims. These games and simulations are then critically assessed to identify certain gaps and challenges in the current set of games. Based on this, some recommendations are made to foster future use and development of Lean games and simulations. This will lead to identify the properties of a successful Lean game and simulation.
First the Lean principles and techniques will be described, explaining its use and implementation. This will be followed by an analysis of the use of games and simulations in education and training. Furthermore the overview of Lean games and simulations in common use will be treated and analyzed.
3. Literature Study
3.1. What is Lean?
3.1.1. Background of Lean
Since the introduction of the assembly line and the following development of the Toyota Production System (TPS), productivity has been a prime objective of manufacturing. The Lean philosophy is focused on identifying and removing waste (or non-value activities) in products and services to create value for customers. Lean is a multi-faceted approach that consists of a wide variety of organizational practices and mindsets. An example of one of these organizational practices and mindsets is supplier management. Waste can occur in many areas in the supply chain, a Lean supply chain management can thus root out the problematic areas creating waste. The main goal of Lean is such that these practices work together and create a streamlined, high quality system that produces finished products and services with a minimum of waste.
3.1.2. The seven types of waste
The main focus of Lean theory is the elimination of waste, every activity in pursuit of being Lean is for the purpose of eliminating waste. Waste is defined by all activities which do not add value to the customer. Taiichi Ohno identified seven different types of waste within the processes of the Toyota Production System (1988). Initially, waste can be easily identified in all processes and early changes can reap huge savings (Melton, 2005). The seven types of waste are overproduction, waiting, unnecessary motion, transport, over processing, unnecessary inventory and defects.
The waste of overproduction is making too much, too early, or “just-in-case” without being focused on customers’ demand. Examples of these are products for no specific customer or development of a product or process for no additional value. This leads to accumulation of stock and quality loss or deterioration of the product (John Bicheno, 2004). A pull system can partially prevent this (if possible) by only enabling work to move forwards when the next process or activity is ready for it. In a pull system the product or service is pulled through the processes driven by the consumer’s demand.
The waste of waiting can be described as the waste when in a factory, any time that materials or components are seen to be not moving. Essentially time not being used effectively is a waste. As people, equipment or products wait to be processed it is not adding value to the customer and is therefore treated as waste. Since waiting is related to lead time (which is an important source of competitiveness and customer satisfaction), it is one of the most important types of wastes.
The waste of unnecessary motions refers to movements that aren’t needed by both human and machine. Excessive movement of the people who operate is wasteful. While they are in motion they cannot support the processes .The time that is wasted by these motions can be far better utilized if the workplace layout and workstations were designed around having everything that is necessary close-by.
The waste of transport is depicted by any movement of materials. Moving the product to several locations can be seen as a waste. While the product is in motion it is not being processed and is therefore not adding value to the customer. The chance of materials to deteriorate or get damaged also increases with more transport and handling operations (John Bicheno, 2004). Movement also introduces a greater lead time which will also create waste.
The waste of over processing refers to the waste created by using big machines instead of several smaller ones and by particular process steps which do not add value to the product. These big machines may not be efficient and can have an effect on quality which then causes defects. The ideal is here to choose the smallest machine, capable of producing the required quality that fits with the capacity that exactly matches demand. Smaller machines avoid bottlenecks, improve flow lengths, may be simpler and keep up with technology (John Bicheno, 2004).
Inventory is the storage of products, intermediates, raw materials, and so on. Unnecessary inventory tends to have large costs, increases lead time and prevents rapid identification of problems. Stock hides problems, the safety inventory works as a barrier that can absorb defects. The inventory will cover up the real problem and may therefore not seem important. This leads to decreased quality and productivity. The existence of unnecessary raw materials, work-in-progress (WIP) and finished goods therefore create waste. (John Bicheno, 2004)
Finally there’s the waste of defects, a defect consists of every type of scrap, rework, delay, warranty, repair and etc. a product can experience when a component or product doesn’t meet the specifications. Defects can occur by errors in the process, they require additional work or re-work. Defects have costs and these tend to grow the longer they remain undetected.
These 7 types of waste give a good general understanding of which wastes can be found within a process. However waste prevention is at least as important as waste elimination since prevention can often save costs on the long term. Nowadays other wastes can be added to Taiichi Ohno’s list, examples of these are the wastes of untapped competence, waste of inappropriate systems and software, wasted energy and materials, etc.
3.1.3. The Five Principles of Lean
An important aspect for Lean is continuous improvement. To achieve continuous improvement companies can use the five Lean principles for guiding the implementation of Lean techniques. By working with the five Lean principles companies can take a first step in improving their processes to be customer focused. Womack and Jones (2003) defined these principles as a five step continuous process. They suggest that if managers apply these Lean principles as concepts, they can reap the benefits of Lean and improve their competitive edge. Tsigkas (2012) described and explained these principles further, which are mentioned below.
The critical starting point for Lean thinking is value. This leads us to our first principle: ‘specifying value’. Define the value for a specific product or service from the perspective of the end customer. All the non-value activities which don’t contribute to this specified value can therefore be seen as waste. Lean thinking must then start with an attempt to precisely define value in terms of specific products with specific capabilities through the customer’s point of view. Lean principles must ignore the existing infrastructure and technology and should rethink the business from the view of the customer.
The second principle is to ‘identify the value stream’. The value stream is the set of all specific actions required in creating and producing a specific product. This ranges from the initial concept through the detailed design, from the initial sale through order entry and production scheduling to delivery, and from raw materials to the finished product in the hands of the customer (Melton, 2005). Identifying the value stream is the next step in Lean thinking. Once you know what your customer wants, the next step is to identify how you are delivering it to them. Lean thinking can therefore go beyond the firm. Instead of defining the value and value stream from the perspective of one firm, define it from the perspective of the entire product chain.
The third principle focuses on creating flow within the remaining value-creating steps. To create flow you need to eliminate the previous observed waste in the form of non-value activities. This flow will ensure that the product or service will reach the customer without any interruption or detour.
The fourth principle is leverage pull, which comes down to the elimination of excess production by focusing on the demands of customers. The most important aspect of this principle is to understand the customer demands for your product or service and then adjusting your processes to respond to this demand. This will allow you to enable the customer to pull the product from you and thus eliminating excess production. You will only produce what the customer wants when he wants it.
The final principle revolves around perfection. By implementing the previous principles more waste will surface and the process will only continue towards the theoretical perfection (every activity is value adding) if these principles are used on continuous basis. The improvement cycle should be continuous and should never end. This is shown in figure 1.