The teaching of Lean Enterprise Thinking in the aerospace context requires that studentsunderstand a complex subject—aerospace enterprises and their transformation—in a deep andintuitive way. Without this context, the lessons of the LAI Lean Academy Course® will makelittle sense. A rich simulation of an enterprise with a structure and problems typical of the USaerospace industry is used as a teaching tool. The simulation allows students to understand LeanThinking at an intuitive level, and practice lean tools in a realistic setting. The simulationenables a CDIO approach (in this case, Comprehend, Design, Implement and Operate), byhaving the students take two iterations through a CDIO process to transform the simulatedenterprise from an inefficient legacy state to a high performance future state (x3 to x6 productionusing the same resources). The simulation and its teaching goals are described, with reference tothe limited literature on simulations in education. The process used in the simulation is thendescribed in a CDIO context. Finally, the success of the simulation is evaluated using limitedquantitative and more extensive qualitative data. It is found that the simulation is a powerfullearning tool and a key component of the LAI Lean Academy.
展开▼
