Masters Theses

Abstract

"Global competition and customer demands are pressing modern industry operations to become leaner. The race among the global corporations to "go lean" demands engineers with an in-depth understanding of lean philosophies. An overview of current methods for teaching lean shows that they include small scale hands-on projects, presentations, and guest lectures. There is a need to incorporate a more immersive virtual simulation to further inspire students. Many lean simulation games are available in the market; however, they lack simplicity, ability to store the results, and modeling power.

The goal of this research is to develop a virtual simulation platform, enabling students to perform various experiments by applying lean concepts, while addressing the above-mentioned difficulties. Assignments addressing the implementation of various lean tools are developed as a mode of utilizing the virtual simulation model in a lean course.

In order to make the simulation more interesting, attractive, and learner friendly, the VE-Suite design includes user-friendly dialogue boxes, graphical models of machines, and an editable layout. The simulation platform enables students to implement various lean concepts such as just-in-time (JIT), standard work, takt time, single minute exchange of dies (SMED), kaizen, kanban, and U-layout by modifying the process parameters such as process times, setup times, layout, and demand rates. The simulation starts with a traditional push type mass production line consisting four work stations. The students interact with the production line and apply lean tools to improve it.

By providing a more immersive learning experience for the students the research hopes to improve understanding and retention of lean concepts"--Abstract, page iii.

Advisor(s)

Corns, Steven
Cudney, Elizabeth A.

Committee Member(s)

Gosavi, Abhijit

Department(s)

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Degree Name

M.S. in Manufacturing Engineering

Publisher

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Publication Date

Fall 2011

Pagination

ix, 89 pages

Note about bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 83-88).

Rights

© 2011 Akalpit Kiran Gadre, All rights reserved.

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

File Type

text

Language

English

Subject Headings

Educational productivity
Graphical user interfaces (Computer systems) -- Design
Instructional systems -- Design
Waste minimization

Thesis Number

T 9925

Print OCLC #

795395878

Electronic OCLC #

909289888

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Manufacturing Commons

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