Deploying 5S lean design for organizing a pharmacy inventory
Affiliation: University of ThessalyResolution: Individual, Group
Duration: Two to four hours, More than four hours
Overview
Goals
The goal is to understand 5S lean design, a process that was first introduced in the automotive industry with the objective of reducing production costs through a methodology that simplifies production design and keeps only vital activities. By simplifying production and following standards, production process maintenance requirements are minimized themselves, thus helping contain production costs.
Learning Objectives
Upon completing the simulation students will: - Have a good understanding of 5S lean design production processes - Be able to apply 5S lean design in practical situations - Understand how 5S can be deployed beyond the automotive industry, in which it was initially designed, to benefit broad engineering projects
Context
The second application refers to the “5S” implementation model that is often applied in lean processes. The model refers to the actions sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain. A basic functionality is developed, which has the main features of gameplay. The application is developed both in 2D and 3D (3 dimensions). The player is challenged to deploy the 5S methodology in order to improve the work space and thus reduce implementation time. The player is asked to move a character on the game canvas by clicking on the ground. The player can interact with other characters and objects of the game by clicking on them. The basic gameplay is as follows: the player moves around on the screen in order to fulfill a task. By applying each of the 5S principles, naming sorting, ordering, shining/cleaning, and standardizing, the player will improve significantly the work flow. Three learning scenarios are developed following this idea. It can be declined in a various number of manners to demonstrate lean design and more specifically 5S. The scenarios address the needs of different industries. They include: ordering a pharmacy inventory (medical engineering), ordering a scrapyard (manufacturing), and ordering a desktop space on a computer (ICT and wider sectors). These diverse scenarios demonstrate the fact that lean production can be applied in diverse engineering and wider sectors, thus going beyond the traditional software engineering and manufacturing applications of the process.