Gamification of Lean Concepts

Understanding the concept of “Lean Manufacturing” can be a little tricky and counter intuitive. So here is a vignette discussing why playing a lean “game” can help solidify the concept and make clear the ideas that lean is advocating. It is one thing to read about lean manufacturing techniques, it is another to see them in action.

Emanuel’s factory wasn’t doing well. The team members were working as quickly as they could but they never got ahead of their problems. The plastic inventory components were stacked up around the work centers, customer satisfaction rates were low, and product wasn’t flowing through the factory in a timely manner. The only consolation was that none of the competitor’s factories looked much better. Emanuel’s frustration level was beginning to grow and he could feel himself getting angry, he just didn’t know how to improve production. It was at this time that the instructor stepped in and explained to the four teams sitting around the lean manufacturing game boards how they could improve.

The instructor from a lean manufacturing consulting firm demonstrated techniques for streamlining the factory floor layout on the game board and provided ideas for moving materials from work cell to work cell based on upstream demand and not simply meeting a quota. After the demonstration by the instructor, Emanuel and his fellow teammates reconfigured their mock factory and moved their plastic inventory pieces based on the new advice. During this process, something became glaringly obvious to Emanuel, quickly moving inventory from work center to work center wasn’t as productive as only moving inventory when the downstream work centered need it. Emanuel had read that advice and heard it spoken about by instructors but he never really understood or trusted that idea until he witnessed the dramatic results during the playing of the game. Four weeks later the product line Emanuel supervised benefited from his new insight by waiting for downstream demand before producing the needed inventory. Production on Emanuel’s line increased by 20% while scrap decreased by 15%.

Also, here are several videos showing lean games in action.

Lean Lego Game

Lean Car Production Game

Lean Simulation Game