Work in progress: An innovative interdisciplinary lean manufacturing course

This paper introduces preliminary developments of an NSF-funded on-going educational project. The project goal is to enhance student technical and professional skills and business knowledge by integrating lean manufacturing education into a traditional manufacturing engineering program. A group of faculty members with complementary background and expertise in engineering and business co-taught a new Lean course that attracted student enrollments from five departments across campus. In addition to plant tours, guest lectures' and real-world industrial projects, we particularly designed an innovative and unique experience, Lean Lego Simulation (LLS), which has proven valuable for students to better understand lean principles and applications. Course survey shows student feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Evaluation is also being carried out to measure how well the project is working from the viewpoint of all participants especially faculty collaboration and student achievements.